GIFT   OF 
George  b. Allen 


BIOLOGY 

LIBRARY 

G 


HOMO  VERSUS  DARWIN : 

A 

JUDICIAL   EXAMINATION 

OF 

STATEMENTS  RECENTLY  PUBLISHED  BY  MR.  DARWIN 
REGARDING 

"THE  DESCENT  OF  MAN." 


"  Ascidians  are  marine  creatures  permanently  attached  to  a  support.  They 
hardly  appear  like  animals,  and  consist  of  a  simple,  tough,  leathery  sac,  with 
two  small  projecting  orifices."— ME.  DAKWIN. 


;    ;rv*'  :*;  :>  ;  ; 
ur?T  -,»r%'M  ;; 


. 

•    H 

PHILADELPHIA: 

CLAXTON,  REMSEN  &  HAFFELFINGER, 

819  &  821  MARKET  STREET. 
1872. 


V} 


6 


GIFT 


ASCIDIAN   TADPOLES. 

THE  LARGEB  FIGURE  HIGHLY  MAGNIFIED. 

Given  that  the  reader  may  form  some  idea  of  man's  very  remote 
ancestors,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin.      See  page  13. 

416516 


PREFACE. 


AT  the  beginning  of  this  year  the  reading  classes  of 
England  were  all,  more  or  less,  in  a  state  of  expectancy, 
their  attention  being  fixed  on  Mr.  Darwin,  who  was 
known  to  be  engaged  in  bringing  out  a  work  which  was 
to  mark  a  new  era  in  Natural  Science.  It  was  confidently 
believed  by  many  that  he  had  in  his  possession  facts 
which  would  enable  him  to  establish  his  favourite  hypo- 
thesis on  a  sure  basis,  and  lay  all  his  opponents,  whether 
men  or  systems,  defeated  in  the  dust. 

The  work  at  length  appeared,  and  was  eagerly  read  by 
thousands  throughout  our  land.  There  is  no  difficulty 
in  getting  through  the  two  volumes  of  which  it  is 
composed,  for  they  abound  in  facts  gathered  from  that 
most  interesting  field  of  enquiry — Natural  History  ;  and 
where  facts  fail  him,  Mr.  Darwin  is  able,  in  their 
stead,  to  present  suppositions  quite  as  interesting,  and 
perhaps  even  more  startling. 

But  to  the  mind  of  a  serious  reader  this  is  all  that  can 
be  obtained  from  its  perusal,  for  Mr.  Darwin's  style  of 

V 


>i  PREFACE. 

reasoning  is  eminently  unsatisfactory.  One  by  one,  with 
cool  indifference,  he  throws  overboard,  not  only  Chris- 
tianity, but  also  the  tried  and  sure  methods  of  the 
inductive  philosophy  of  Bacon,  which  would  have  sunk 
his  light  craft,  and  along  with  these  the  first  axioms  of 
logic  aiid  common  sense. 

As  a  remonstrance  against  this  unwarrantable  outrage 
on  religion  and  philosophy,  as  well  as  on  true  science, 
the  present  volume  has  been  penned.  The  writer  has 
presented  his  thoughts  on  the  main  questions  raised  by 
Mr.  Darwin  in  the  form  of  a  judicial  enquiry,  in  order 
thus,  more  clearly,  and  in  a  more  lively  manner,  to  put 
before  his  readers  the  important  points  at  issue,  and  also  to 
bring  Mr.  Darwin  face  to  face  with  those  well-known 
and  acknowledged  principles  of  investigation  which  he  is 
only  too  ready  to  ignore. 

September  27th,  1871. 


CONTENTS. 

The  Case  is  referred  for  arbitration  to  Lord  C. 
FIRST  DAY'S  SITTING. — Opening  of  the  Case. 

PAGB 

Homo  states  his  ground  of  complaint — Mr.  Darwin 
traces  man's  pedigree  from  the  tadpole-like  offspring  of 
ancient  Ascidians  through  fishes,  amphibians,  reptiles, 
and  the  lower  mammal*,  to  Old  World  monkeys  ;  from 
thence,  through  a  long  series  of  now  vanished  forms,  to 
man — Ascidians  and  their  larvae — All  intermediate  forms 
between  ape  and  man  extinct  —  Professor  Huxley 
knows  of  no  new  species  having  been  originated  by 
selection — Mr.  Darwin's  former  belief  in  the  possibility 
of  black  bears  being  changed  into  creatures  like  whales 
— The  historic  period  refuses  its  help  to  Mr.  Darwin — 
Geology  unable  to  supply  him  with  the  missing  links  ...  9 — 32 

SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.—  Mr.  Darwin's  Defence. 

Discussion  on  evidence  adduced  by  Mr.  Darwin  of 
man's  descent  from  some  lower  form — Bodily  structure- 
Embryology — Rudiments — The  panniculus — The  external 
ear — M.B.  cars — The  third  eyelid — S  nse  of  smell — How- 
man  has  ceased  to  inherit  the  hairy  coat  of  his  pro- 
genitors ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  32 — 58 

THIRD  DAY'S  SITTING. — Mr.  Darwin's  Defence.     (ContJ 

Discussion  on  rudiments  continued — Occasional  long 
hairs  of  the  eyebrow — Lanugo — Wisdom  teeth — Tiie 
great  canine  teeth  of  our  progenitors  used  for  tearing 
their  enemies — Mr.  Darwin's  iristakes — How  did  man 
lose  his  tail  ? — Has  a  Cr  at  or  never  intervened  ?  ...  59 — 76 

FOURTH  DAY'S  SITTING. — Mr.  Darwin's  Defence.     (Cont.) 

Mr.  Darwin's  account  of  the  way  in  which  an  ape-like 
creature  may  change  insensibly  into  man — It  lives  less 
on  trees  and  more  on  the  ground — Finds  it  convenient 
to  become  biped  and  erect — Hands  suitable  for  climbing 
trees,  r.ot  suitable  for  hur  ing  stones  or  spears — Hence 
an  ape's  hands  change  in  the  human  dircc.  ion,  and  also 
it*  feet — Africa,  the  supposed  c  uctry  of  man's  pro- 


Yiii  CONTENTS. 

genitors,  abounds  with  dangerous  beasts — How  man's 
progenitors  may  have  escaped  them  when  losing  their 
brute-like  powers — They  may,  however,  have  inhabited 
some  safer  country — The  brain  of  man  in  comparison 
with  the  brain  of  the  ape 77 — 88 

FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING. — Close  of  Mr.  Darwin's  Defence. 

Man's  mental  and  moral  powers — The  lowest  savages 
resemble  us  in  the  mental  faculty — Points  on  whi  -h  man 
is  said  to  differ  essentially  from  the  lower  animals — 
Capacity  for  progressive  improvement — The  manufacture 
of  tools — The  u;e  of  fire — The  orang's  first  step  in  archi- 
tecture— Language — General  ideas,  abstraction,  &c. — 
Sense  of  beauty — Belief  in  God — Beligion — Reasoning 
power  of  Mr.  Darwin's  dog — Can  a  dog  distinguish 
between  moral  right  and  wrong  ? — Mr.  Darwin's  views 
of  conscience  and  the  moral  sense — The  new  and 
strange  morality  to  which  his  principles  lead — How 
family  murder  might  have  been  a  sacred  duty — 
Sympathy  for  the  we  k  and  helpless  causes  a  degene- 
ration of  the  race  of  man — Probable  effect  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  principles  on  the  rising  generation—  V  sionary 
Speculations— The  mystery  of  life  89—133 

SIXTH  DAY'S  SITTING.    Summing  up  by  Lord  C. 

Ancient  and  more  recent  specu  ations  on  the  origin  of 
the  universe  and  of  man — No  views  hitherto  put  forth 
on  Evolution  have  been  established — Mr.  Darwin's 
htvle  of  argument — He  n  w  admits  the  existence  of 
unknown  agencies — Past  history  and  present  experience 
agai  st  him — Many  living  species  have  remained  un- 
cha.iged  during  3000  generations — The  sterility  ot  cross 
ds — G-eology — Professor  Huxley  and  the  pedigree 
of  the  horse— Professor  Owen — Ru  liments — A  wonderful 
transformation — Mr.  Darwin's  ape  excepted,  monkeys 
have  remained  monkeys  f  >r  millions  of  ages — The 
mental  faculty — The  Darwin  :m  morality — What  it  in- 
volves, jir.ctical  atheism  —  The  dogma  of  separate 
creations  not  taught  in  Scripture — Darwinism  and 
-ty  irreconcilable — Lord  C.'s  awar.l — Homo's 
/oml  for  a  xritlcmeut  of  the  case— Lord  C.'s  closing 
advice  to  Mr  1'  ...134  l."5 


HOMO  VERSUS  DARWIN. 


FIRST  DAY'S  SITTING. 

IT  having  been  agreed,  on  the  recommendation  of  the 
Judge  before  whom  this  case  was  to  have  been  tried,  to 

refer  it  for  arbitration  to  Lord  G ,  one  of  the  ablest  of 

English  Jurists,  that  the  evidence  on  which  Mr.  Darwin's 
statements  rest  might  be  thoroughly  sifted,  and  also  that 
the  Plaintiff  and  Defendant  should  each  speak  for  himself  ; 
on  the  opening  of  the  Court,  Homo,  was  called  on  to  state 
his  ground  of  complaint,  and  spoke  as  follows  : — 

My  case,  my  Lord,  may  be  stated  in  a  very  few  words. 
It  is  well  known  to  your  Lordship,  and  will  not  be  denied 
by  the  Defendant,  that,  during  many  centuries,  it  has  been 
acknowledged  that  my  first  ancestors  derived  existence 
directly  from  a  Divine  source,  and  were,  therefore,  in  a  very 
intelligible  sense,  the  offspring  of  God.  There  are  ancient 
documents  with  which  your  Lordship  is  familiar,  and  which 
many  of  the  most  powerful  intellects  our  country  has  pro- 
duced have  regarded  as  divinely  true,  in  which  such  is 
certified  to  be  the  origin  of  my  race.  This  sentiment  is 
confirmed  by  the  traditions  of  all  civilized  nations,  and  it  is 
generally  admitted  by  men  of  philosophic  mind  that  my 
nature  bears  on  ittelf  evident  traces  of  its  alliance  with  tht 
Divine. 

B  9 


.  DARWIN. 

I  have  to  complain,  then,  that  the  Defendant,  following 
in  the  track  of  some  recent  naturalists,  has  lately  published 
a  work  entitled  "The  Descent  of  Man,"  in  which  he 
affirms  that  I  am  "  certainly  descended  from  some  ape-like 
creature."  "  Man,"  he  says,  "  is  descended  from  a  hairy 
quadruped,  furnished  with  a  tail  and  pointed  ears,  probably 
arboreal  in  its  habits,  and  an  inhabitant  of  the  old  world." 
(Vol.  ii.  p.  889.)  "  The  early  progenitors  of  man,"  he  says 
again,  "  were  no  doubt  well  covered  with  hair,  both  sexes 
having  beards ;  their  ears  v  ere  pointed  and  capable  of 
movement ;  and  their  bodies  were  provided  with  a  tail, 
having  the  proper  muscles.  .  .  .  The  males  were  provided 
with  great  canine  teeth,  which  served  them  as  formidable 
weapons."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  206,  207.) 

But  this  is  not  all,  my  Lord.  Mr.  Darwin  further 
«ffirms  that  my  most  ancient  progenitors  were  creatures 
resembling  the  larvse,  or  young  of  Ascidians — the  Ascidians 
being  scarcely  animals  at  all.  They  are  classed  by  some 
naturalists  among  the  worms,  while  their  young  resemble 
tadpoles.  Mr.  Darwin  thus  affirms  that  I  am  descended 
from  a  tadpole,  and  am,  in  short,  the  offsj  ring  of  a  worm  ! 

I  have  to  complain,  my  Lord,  that,  in  maintaining  such 
to  be  my  origin,  Mr.  Darwin  entirely  ignores  the  general 
sentiment  and  belief  of  my  race  regarding  it,  and  also  the 
historical  and  philosophical  evidence  on  which  it  rests,  and 
that  he  takes  occasion,  from  some  points  in  my  bodily 
structure  in  which  it  resembles  those  of  the  lower  animals, 
to  affirm  that  I  am  sprung  from  the  same  stock  with  them, 
and  differ  from  them  merely  by  virtue  of  processes  which  he 
calls  "Natural  Selection"  and  "Sexual  Selection."  He 
thus  degrades  me  from  being  a  creature  made  by  the 
Divine  hand  and  bearing  traces  of  the  Divine  image,  to  be 
merely  a  more  perfectly  developed  animal,  and  allied,  rather 


FIRST  DAY'S  SITTING.  11 

to  the  apes  and  monkeys  of  the  present  day,  than  to  the 
Almighty  Creator  of  all  things.  I  have  to  complain,  my 
Lord,  that  this  attempt  of  Mr.  Darwin  to  give  me  a  brutish 
origin,  not  only  degrades  me  in  my  own  est;mation,  but  is 
calculated  to  have  an  injurious  effect  on  my  youthful 
offspring.  Let  them  but  be  taught  that  they  are  the 
relatives  of  apes  and  monkeys,  instead  of  being  the  offspring 
of  God,  and  that  their  most  ancient  progenitor  was  a  tadpole 
and  a  worm,  and  it  will  take  away  from  them  one  of  the 
most  powerful  motives  to  act  a  rational,  worthy,  and  noble 
part  on  the  great  stage  of  human  life. 

Lord  C.  As  I  understand  tl.e  matter,  then,  the  head  and 
front  of  Mr.  Darwin's  offending  is,  that  he  affirms  you  to  be 
descended  from  a  hairy  quadiuped,  and  more  remotely 
from  some  creature  like  a  tadpole,  instead  of  having  been 
created  immediately  by  the  Divine  Being.  You  also  com- 
plain of  Mr.  Darwin's  statements  as  being  not  only  untrue, 
but  also  offensive  and  libellous,  and  likely  to  exert  an 
injurious  influence  on  the  youthful  portion  of  your  race. 

Homo.  Precisely  so,  my  Lord.  He  affirms  that  "  it  is 
only  our  natural  prejudice,  and  that  arrogance  which  made 
our  forefathers  declare  that  they  were  descended  from 
demi-gods,  which  leads  us  to  demur  to  this  conclusion." 
(Vol.  i.  p.  33.) 

Lord  C.  The  conclusion  certainly  is  not  a  flattering  one. 
But  I  should  like  Mr.  Darwin  himself  to  state  the  view  re- 
garding our  descent  which  he  is  endeavouring  to  propagate. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  I  give"  to  man  "  a  pedigree  of  pro- 
digious length,"  if  not  "  of  noble  quality."  "  The  most 
ancient  progenitors  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Vertebrata  at 
which  we  are  able  to  obtain  an  obscure  glance,  apparently 
consisted  of  a  group  of  marine  animals,  resembling  the 
larva?  of  existing  Ascidians.  These  animals  probably  gave 

B  2 


12  HOMO  t>.  DAEWIN. 

rise  to  a  group  of  fishes,  as  lowly  organized  as  the  Lan- 
celet ;  and  from  these  the  Ganoids  and  other  fishes  like  the 
Lepidosiren,  must  have  been  developed.  From  such  fish 
a  very  small  advance  would  carry  us  on  to  the  amphibians. 
.  .  .  Birds  and  reptiles  were  once  intimately  connected 
together,  and  the  Monotremata  now,  in  a  slight  degree, 
connect  mammals  with  reptiles.  But  no  one  can  at  present 
say  by  what  line  of  descent  the  three  higher  and  related 
classes,  namely,  mammals,  birds,  and  reptiles,  were  derived 
from  either  of  the  two  lower  vertebrate  classes,  namely, 
amphibians  and  fishes.  In  the  class  of  mammals  the  steps 
are  not  difficult  to  conceive  which  led  from  the  ancient 
Monotremata  to  the  ancient  Marsupials  ;  and  from  these 
to  the  early  progenitors  of  the  placental  animals.  "We  may 
thus  ascend  to  the  Lemuridae  ;  and  the  interval  is  not  wide 
from  these  to  the  Simiadse.  The  Simiadae  then  branched 
off  into  two  great  stems,  the  New  World  and  the  Old  World 
monkeys,  and  from  the  latter,  at  a  remote  period,  man, 

the  wonder  and  glory  of  the  universe,  proceeded 

If  a  single  link  in  this  chain  had  never  existed,  man  would 
not  have  been  what  he  now  is.  Unless  we  wilfully  close 
our  eyes,  we  may,  with  our  present  knowledge,  approxi- 
mately recognize  our  parentage,  nor  need  we  feel  ashamed 
of  it."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  212,  213.) 

Homo.  I  hope,  my  Lord,  that  Mr.  Darwin  will  not  charge 
me  with  wilfully  closing  my  eyes  because  I  feel  unable 
to  recognize  my  parentage  either  in  monkeys  or  tad- 
poles. 

Darwin.  I  beg  Homo's  pardon,  my  Lord  ;  but,  like  Pilate 
of  old,  "  what  I  have  written,  I  have  written." 

Lord  C.  Perhaps  Homo  is  not  yet  sufficiently  advanced 
in  knowledge  to  be  able  to  make  the  recognition  in  question. 
1  must  confess  that  I  find  myself  in  a  similar  predicament. 


FIRST  DAY'S  SITTING. 


18 


I  never  heard  of  these  "  ancient  progenitors  "  of  ours — the 
Ascidians — till  now.  Will  Mr.  Darwin  inform  me  what 
Ascidians  are  ? 

Darwin.  Ascidians,  my  Lord,  are  "  invertebrate,  herma- 
phrodite, marine  creatures  permanently  attached  to  a  sup- 
port. They  hardly  appear  like  animals,  and  consist  of  a 
simple,  tough,  leathery  sac,  with  two  small  projecting 
orifices.  .  .  They  have  recently  been  placed  by  some  natu- 
ralists among  the  Yermes  or  worms.  Their  larvse  some- 
what resemble  tadpoles  in  shape,  and  have  the  power  of 
swimming  freely  about."  (Vol.  i.  p.  205.) 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  has  not  supplied  us  with 
an  engraving  of  an  Ascidian  in  his  book,  but  here  is  one 
which  I  have  been  allowel  to  copy  from  Professor  Huxley's 
"  Introduction  to  the  Classification  of  Animals."  The  Pro- 
fessor says,  "  They  look  very  much  like  double-necked  jars 
At  first  sight  you  might  hardly  suspect  the  animal  nature 
of  one  of  these  organisms,  when  freshly  taken  from  the  sea  ; 
but  if  you  touch  it,  the  stream  of  water  which  it  squirts 

out  of  each  aperture  reveals  the 
existence  of  a  great  contractile 
power  within."  Of  the  two 
apertures,  A  serves  as  a  mouth  ; 
B  is  the  anal  aperture,  and  c  the 
base  of  attachment,  by  which 
it  fastens  itself  to  a  bit  of  sea- 
weed or  to  a  rock.  This  is 
called  a  "Solitary  Ascidian," 
because  it  exists  by  itself; 
others  are  called  "Social," 
"  Aggregate,"  or  "  Compound 

Ascidians,"  because  they  exist  in  groups,  a  number  of  them 
being  united  into  a  mass. 


14  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

Lord  C.  Foreshadowing,  perhaps,  the  fami'y  groups  of 
their  remote  human  posterity  ! 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  does  not  tell  us  whether 
ancient  Ascidians  were  social,  or  not.  It  is  their  degenerate 
posterity  we  are  now  looking  at.  Here  (see  Frontispimf) 
is  another  engraving,  showing  the  larvae  of  Ascidians.  The 
large  one,  from  the  "Penny  Encyclopaedia,"  is  highly 
magnified,  and  shows  the  creature  when  newly  hatched. 
The  smaller  one  is  from  "  Chambers'  Encyclopaedia."  These 
authorities  state  that  "  they  resemble  tadpoles  in  shape,  and 
swim  by  means  of  a  vibratile  tail,  which  they  shake  off 
when  they  quit  the  larva  state  and  assume  the  sessile 
(sitting  or  fixed)  condition." 

Lard  C.  On  what  ground  do  you  affirm,  Mr.  Darwin,  that 
we  human  beings  are  descended  from  creatures  such  as  these? 

Darwin.  "If  we  may  rely  on  Embryology,"  my  Lord, 
"  which  has  always  proved  the  safest  guide  in  classification, 
we  have  at  last  gained  a  clue  to  the  source  whence  the 
Vertebrata  have  been  derived."  It  has  lately  been  discovered 
that  "  the  larvae  of  Ascidians  are  related  to  the  Vertebrata, 
in  their  manner  of  development,  in  the  relative  position  of 
the  nervous  system,  and  in  possessing  a  structure  closely 
like  the  chorda  dorsalis  of  vertebrate  animals.  ...  We 
should  thus  be  justified  in  believing  that,  at  an  extremely 
remote  period,  a  group  of  animals  existed  resembling  in 
many  respects  the  larvae  of  our  present  Ascidians,  which 
diverged  into  two  great  branches — the  one  retrograding  in 
development,  and  producing  the  present  class  of  Ascidians, 
the  other  rising  to  the  crown  and  summit  of  the  animal 
kingdom  by  giving  birth  to  the  Vertebrata."  'I  may  add 
that  "  some  observations  lately  made  by  M.  Kowalevsky, 
I  confirmed  by  Professor  Kuppfer,"  led  to  this  discovery, 
which  will  be  one  of  "extraordinary  interest,  if  still  further 


FIRST   DAY'S   SITTING.  15 

extended,  as  I  hear  from  M.  Kowalevsky,  in  Naples,  he  has 
now  effected."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  205,  206.) 

Homo.  Pray  observe,  my  Lord,  the  remarkable  mental 
agility  of  Mr.  Darwin.  To  reach  his  desired  conclusion,  he 
leaps,  at  a  bound,  over  all  the  recognized  laws  of  reasoning. 
First,  he  tells  us  that  a  foreign  gentleman  lately  made 
"  some  observations,"  which  observations,  it  appears,  another 
foreign  gentleman  confirmed.  Mr.Oarwin  then  hears  from 
thii  first  foreign  gentleman  that  he  has  "  further  extended  " 
those  observations.  We  are  then  unhesitatingly  told  that 
those  observations  have  led  to  the  discovery  that  the  tad- 
pole-like Ascidians  of  the  present  day — which,  for  brevity's 
*ake,  we  may,  I  presume,  henceforth  speak  of  simply  as 
tadpoles — are  "related  in  descent  to  the  Vertebrata."  Another 
element  of  uncertainty  is  then  introduced  into  the  argument. 
"  //,"  says  Mr.  Darwin,  "a/ we  may  rely  on  Embryology.  .  . 
we  have  at  last  gained  a  clue  to  the  source  whence  the 
Vertebrata  have  been  derived."  From  these  hypothetical 
premises — a  portion  of  which  only  I  have  detailed — he 
draws  the  conclusion,  "  We  shotild  thus  be  justified  in 
believing  "-'that  we  are  descended  from  "a  group  of  animals 
resembling -the  larvae  of  our  present  Ascidians.^>  Now,  even 
were  these  premises  of  Mr.  Darwin  satisfactorily  proved, 
my  Lord,  they  do  not  justify  his  conclusion.  No  reputable 
man  of  science  would  dream  of  inferring  from  them  that 
there  was  an  ancient  race  of  tadpoles  more  respectable  than 
any  now  in  existence,  and  that  these  ancient  tadpoles  were 
the  progenitors  of  man  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  de- 
generate tadpoles  of  these  days  on  the  other.  If  such 
reasoning  be  valid,  why,  then,  one  might  undertake  to  prove 
that  Tenterden  steeple  is  the  cause  of  the  Goodwin 
Sands! 

Lord  C.  You  had  better,  Homo,  let  Mr.  Darwin  reason 


16  HOMO  V.    DAHWI.V. 

in  his  own  way.  Of  course,  you  are  not  bound  by  his 
conclusions. 

Homo.  But  is  it  not  necessary,  my  Lord,  that  the  facts — so 
called — on  which  he  bases  his  hypothesis,  should  be  verified  ? 
Mr.  Darwin  says  himself  that  "  false  facts  are  highly  in- 
jurious to  the  progress  of  science."  (Vol.  ii.  p.  385.)  Can 
the  unverified  observations  then,  of  two  foreign  gentlemen, 
afford  a  sufficient  ground  for  the  affirmation  that  the  root 
of  human  nature  is  to  be  found  in  a  tadpole ;  or  that  a 
worm,  by  a  numberless  succession  of  improvements',  has 
developed  into  man  ? 

Lord  0.  If,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  you  will  accept  as 
facts  what  Mr.  Darwin  advances  as  facts,  we  shall  be  the  better 
able  to  test  the  value  of  his  hypothesis.  Mr.  Darwin,  I  am 
sure,  would  not  knowingly  put  forward  false  statements. 

Homo.  I  do  not  suppose  he  would,  my  Lord,  for  exposure 
would  be  certain  ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  that  over-fond- 
ness for  his  hypothesis,  the  child  of  his  own  brain,  might 
make  him  less  careful  than  he  should  be  in  accepting  the 
statements  of  others.  Indeed,  he  repeatedly  errs  in  this 
direction,  as  I  could  easily  show  your  Lordship.  But  I  am 
quite  willing  to  adopt  your  Lordship's  suggestion.  We  shall, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  suppose  Mr.  Darwin's  facts  to  be 
real  facts.  But  I  shall  take  the  liberty,  when  I  think  it 
needful,  of  jointing  out  their  unsatisfactory  character. 

Lord  C.  You  will  be  quite  right  in  doing  so.  To  return 
then  to  our  argument.  Mr.  Darwin,  it  appears,  maintains 
that  our  line  of  descent,  if  traced  backwards,  as  far  as  he 
can  reach,  would  lead  us  to  creatures  somewhat  resembling 
in  shape  the  tadpoles  of  the  present  day. 

Darwin.  AVhat  I  say,  my  Lord,  is  this :  "The  most  ancient 
progenitors  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Vertebrata  (to  which 
kingdom  man  belongs),  at  which  we  are  able  to  obtain  an 


FIRST  DAY'S  SITTING.  17 

obscure  glance,  apparently  consisted  of  a  group  of  marine 
animals,  resembling  the  larvae  of  existing  Ascidians." 

Lord  C.  And  Ascidians  "  have  been  recently  placed,"  you 
say,  "by  some  naturalists,  among  the  Yermes  or  worms." 
Job,  then,  would  almost  seem  to  have  anticipated  your 
hypothesis  when  he  said  to  the  worm,  "  Thou  art  my 
mother."  There  is,  however,  this  difference  Xjob  meant  it 
figuratively,  you  mean  it  literally  and  in  reality.^ 

Darwin.  Precisely  so,  my  Lord  ;  and  thus,  as  I  have 
said,  "  we  approximately  recognize  our  parentage,  nor  need 

we  feel  ashamed  of  it." 

•  - 

Lord  C.  "Well,  that  is  a  matter  of  taste — I  should  rather 
say,  perhaps,  of  feeling  or  sentiment. 

Homo.  I  should  say,  my  Lord,  the  imagination  has  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  it. 

Lord  C'.  We  proceed  now  to  look  at  the  evidence.  Is  it 
the  case,  then,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  in  endeavouring  to  work 
out  the  conclusion  you  have  arrived  at,  you  take  no  account 
of  evidence  hostile  to  it,  derived  from  such  sources  as  Homo 
has  referred  to — I  mean  such  sources  as  revelation-tradi- 
tion, the  reasonings  of  philosophers,  &c.  ? 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  I  am  a  naturalist,  and  I  follow  the 
line  of  evidence  with  which  my  favourite  study  has  made 
me  familiar. 

Lord  C.  But  is  it  wise  to  ignore  other  lines  of  evidence  ? 
In  courts  of  law  we  feel  bound  to  take  note  of  evidence,  from 
whatever  source  it  may  come.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  true 
spirit  of  philosophy,  which  is  just  a  sincere  love  of  truth— 
would  lead  you  to  pursue  a  similar  course.  How  can  you 
justify  yourself,  in  so  serious  a  matter,  in  pooh-poohing 
evidence  which  some  of  the  greatest  of  your  countrymen 
have  thought  conclusive  on  the  other  side  ? 

Homo.  Pardon  me,  my  Lord,  but  I  think  that,,  in  wilfully 


18  HOMO   V.   DARWi:.*. 

closing  his  eyes  to  evidence  that  may  be  brought  from 
other  sources,  Mr.  Darwin,  makes  himself,  so  far,  like  a  horse 
when  we  have  put  on  its  blinkers,  and  which,  therefore,  can 
see  only  in  one  direction.  There  is  just  this  difference  ; 
Mr.  Darwin  makes  his  own  blinkers  and  puts  them  on  him- 
self. He  is  thus  disabled  from  seeing  in  any  line  of  obser- 
vation but  that  of  Natural  History.  He  has,  moreover, 
become  so  blinded  by  the  unnatural  use  he  makes  of  his  eyes, 
that  he  cannot  see  very  clearly  with  them  anywhere. 

Lord  C.  Yon  mud;  speak  respectfully  of  Mr.  Darwin, 
Homo. 

Homo.  I  beg  your  Lordship's  pardon  if  I  have  trans- 
gressed. I  desire  to  cherish  every  kind  feeling  towards 
Mr.  Darwin,  but  hope,  at  the  same  time,  that  I  may  not  be 
prevented  from  fully  speaking  out  my  mind. 

Lord  C.  I  understand,  then,  that  Mr.  Darwin  thinks  the 
evidence  which  he  brings  from  Natural  History  as  to  our 
descent  from  a  hairy  quadruped,  and,  more  remotely,  from 
creatures  resembling  the  larvae  of  Ascidians,  to  be  so  con- 
clusive ae  quite  to  set  aside  any  evidence  to  the  contrary 
that  might  be  brought  from  other  sources,  and,  indeed,  to 
render  it  unworthy  of  any  notice  whatever.  I  understand 
ulso  that  Mr.  Darwin  does  not  suppose  man  to  have  been 
immediately  produced  by  this  hairy  quadruped,  but  to  be 
merely  his  remote  descendant ;  that  other  races — each  suc- 
ceeding one,  I  presume,  being  less  ape-like  and  more  ) 
human-like — intervened  ;  and  that  each  of  these  races, 
through  the  power  of  Natural  Selection,  produced  a  fresh 
race,  less  like  the  original,  till  at  length  the  last  of  them 
produced  man. 

Darwin.  There  must,  my  Lord,  have  been  "  a  series  of 
forms  graduating  insensibly  from  some  ape-like  creature  to 
man  as  he  now  exists."  (Vol.  i.  p.  235.) 


FIEST   DAY'S  SITTING.  19 

Lard  0.  Do  any  of  these  intervening  "  series  of  forms," 
then,  survive  ? 

Darwin.  None  of  them,  my  Lord.  Indeed,  "  the  great 
break  in  the  organic  chain  between  man  and  his  nearest 
allies,  which  cannot  be  bridged  over  by  any  extinct  or 
living  species,  has  often  been  advanced  as  a  grave  objection 
to  the  belief  that  man  is  descended  from  some  lower  form." 
(Vol.  i.  p.  200.) 

Lord  C.  I  do  not  wonder  at  that,  for,  as  the  race  of 
man  has  proved  hardy  enough  to  survive,  one  would  think 
that  some,  at  least,  of  his  ancestral  races  would  have 
proved  as  hardy  as  himself.  But  perhaps  you  suppose  that, 
when  the  series  that  has  ended  in  man  branched  away  from 
the  stem  of  the  Old  World  monkeys,  all  the  members  in  each 
successive  series  were  travelling  gradually  towards  the  goal 
of  humanity,  so  that  a  time  at  length  came,  when  each 
surviving  mother  in  the  last  series  found  herself  strangely 
producing  man. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  will  you  kindly  observe  that  I  spok« 
of  "  a  series  of  forms,  graduating  insensibly  from  some  ape-l 
like  creature  to  man." 

Homo.  I  should  say,  my  Lord,  that,  if  this  "graduating" 
process  ever  took  place,  it  was  a  very  sensible  process, 
though  "  insensibly  "  performed. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin's  meaning  is  clear  enough.  He 
means  by  "insensibly"  that  each  step  in  the  series  of 
changes  by  which,  at  length,  ape  became  man,  was  trivial 
in  itself,  though  the  whole  combined  has  produced  the  result 
which  we  now  see.  But  I  wish  to  learn  from  Mr.  Darwin, 
whether  he  supposes  that  each  step  in  this  series  of  changes 
which  he  thinks  resulted  in  the  production  of  man,  was 
taken  by  all  the  mothers  belonging  to  each  series  of  forms. 
Or,  I  may  put  it  differently.  After  the  line  that  produced 


20  HOMO  V.   DARWIX. 

man  had  branched  away  from  the  Old  World  monkeys,  did  all 
the  mothers  in  each  succeeding  "  series  of  forms  "  produce 
offspring  "  insensibly  "in  advance  of  themselves  ;  or  was  it 
only  some  of  the  mothers  that  did  so  ?  This  question  is 
important,  for,  if  only  some  of  the  mothers  produced  off- 
spring in  advance  of  themselves,  then  we  might  inquire 
what  bee  ame  of  the  descendants  of  the  other  mothers. 

Darwin.  You  have  an  answer  to  that  question,  my  Lord, 
in  my  reference  to  "  the  great  break  in  the  organic  chain 
between  man  and  his  nearest  allies,  which  cannot  be 
bridged  over  by  any  extinct  or  living  species."  This  irr  plies 
clearly  enough,  that,  of  the  intermediate  species  between 
man  and  his  nearest  allies,  all  have  become  extinct. 

Lord  C.  I  quite  understand  that,  Mr.  Darwin.  But  if 
you  could  have  said  that  all  the  mothers  in  each  succeeding 
series  produced  an  offspring  insensibly  in  advance  of  them- 
selves, your  hypothesis  would  have  accounted  for  each 
successive  series  having  become  extinct.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  while  some  of  the  mothers  in  each  succeediug 
series  produced  offspring  in  advance  of  themselves — or,  if 
it  suit  you  better,  only  one  of  the  mothers — the  other 
mothers,  being  either  not  so  thoughtful,  or  not  so  ambitious, 
produced  offspring  in  their  own  exact  image  and  likeness, 
it  seems  but  fair  to  suppose  further  that  some  of  those 
intermediate  series  of  forms  would  have  survived,  and  that 
we  should  thus  have  about  us,  at  the  present  day,  races  of 
creatures  graduating,  if  not  "  insensibly,"  yet  clearly  and 
unmistakeahly  towards  man.  Or  again  ;  if  there  were  "  a 
series  of  forms  graduating  insensibly  toward  man,"  the 
number  of  forms,  in  that  series  of  forms,  must  have  been 
enormous  ;  the  more  insensible  the  process,  the  greater  the 
number  of  forms.  Now,  I  want  to  know  how  you  account 
for  the  fact — for  a  fact  it  mubt  be,  if  your  hypothesis  be 


FIEST  DAY'S  SITTING.  21 

true — that  each  of  these  numerous  intermediate  series  of 
forms  has  become  extinct.  Why  have  we  no  species  of 
living  creature  half-way  between  ape  and  man  ?  Why  is 
not  the  vast  gap  filled  up  by  two  or  three,  or  more  of 
these  supposed  numerous  intermediate  forms? 

Darwin.  That,  my  Lord,  "  has  often  been  advanced  as  a 
grave  objection  to  the  belief  that  man  is  descended  from 
some  lower  form,  but  this  objection  will  not  appear  of  much 
weight  to  those  who,  convinced  by  general  reasons,  believe 
in  the  general  principle  of  evolution.  Breaks  incessantly 
occur  in  all  parts  of  the  series,  some  being  wide,  sharp,  and 
defined,  others  less  so  in  various  degrees ;  as  between  the 
orang  and  its  nearest  allies — between  the  Tarsius  and  the 
other  Lemuridae  .  .  .  but  all  these  breaks  depend 
merely  on  the  number  of  related  forms  that  have  become 
extinct."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  200,  201.) 

Lord  C.  I  have  been  arguing  that,  as  these  supposed 
related  forms  graduated  "insensibly"  from  ape  to  man, 
their  number  must  have  been  very  great,  but  you  seem  to 
make  no  difficulty  of  the  circumstance  of  their  all  having 
become  extinct. 

Darwin.  It  is  certainly  np  difficulty  whatever  to  me,  my 
Lord.  "At  some  future  period,  not  very  distant  as 
mej.sjTe^_by__centurie8,  the  civilized  races  of  man  will 
almost  certainly  exterminate  and  replace  throughout  the 
world  the  savage  races.  At  the  same  time  the  anthropo- 
morphous (man-shaped)  apes,  as  Professor  Schaaifhausen 
has  remarked,  will  no  doubt  be  exterminated.  The  break 
will  then  be  rendered  wider."  (Vol.  i.  p.  201.) 

Homo.  What  Mr.  Darwin  says,  my  Lord,  sounds  very 
learned,  but  it  does  not  meet  the  difficulty  suggested. 

Lord  C.  It  certainly  does  not.  I  can  understand  that 
civilized  man  may,  in  the  course  of  time,  exterminate  savage 


22  HOMO   V.   DARWIN. 

man  and  man-shaped  apes,  but  I  cannot  so  easily  understand 
why  the  numerous  related  forms  between  ape  and  man,  if 
they  ever  really  existed,  should  all  have  perished.  So  far 
as  I  understand  Mr.  Darwin's  principle  of  Natural  Selection, 
it  is  the  process  by  which  the  stronger  races,  and  those  best 
fitted  to  succeed,  are  preserved  in  the  struggle  for  life. 
According  to  Natural  Selection,  therefore,  each  of  the  suc- 
•  cessive  races  of  man's  progenitors,  from  the  "  hairy  quadru- 
ped "  on  to  man  himself,  must  have  been  better  fitted  to 
maintain  its  position  in  the  world  than  any  which  preceded 
it.  We  find,  however,  that,  while  many  monkey  tribes 
survive,  all  of  these  have  perished.  Here,  as  it  .seems  to 
me,  is  an  exceedingly  weak  point  in  Mr.  Darwin's  reasoning. 
According  to  his  hypothesis,  the  fittest  should  survive; 
according  to  his  facts,  the  fittest  have  perished  ! 

Homo.  In  reply  to  your  Lordship's  remarks,  Mr.  Darwin 
would  doubtless  say  that  the  fittest  have  survived;  that 
each  successive  race  of  man's  progenitors,  being  superior  to 
that  which  preceded  it,  exterminated  it,  and  eventually  took 
;  its  place.  This,  my  Lord,  is  Natural  Selection,  i.e.  "  the 
survival  of  the  fittest." 

Lord  C.  I  quite  understand  that  Mr.  Darwin  would  say 
BO,  but  the  statement  does  not  carry  conviction  with  it. 
Many  of  the  supposed  races  of  man's  progenitors  must  have 
been  greatly  in  advance  of  any  surviving  species  of  monkey. 

Hoino.  My  Lord,  I  defy  Mr.  Darwin  to  prove  that  any 
one  of  these  numerous  related  forms  between  man  and 
ape,  which  he  says  were  originated  by  Natural  Selection, 
and  have  become  extinct,  ever  existed,  unless  in  his  own 
imagination.  It  is  all  very  fine  to  talk  of  the  "general 
principle  of  evolution,"  but  let  Mr.  Darwin,  or  any  one  of 
those  who  say  they  believe  in  evolution,  point  to  a  sin^U', 
cleur,  and  unmistakeable  instance  of  it.  Professor  Huxley, 


FIRST  DAY'S  SITTING.  23 

who  tells  us  that  he  has  "assuredly  no  bias  against  Mr. 
Darwin's  views,"  distinctly  states  that  "  there  is  no  instance 
in  which  a  group  of  animals,  having  all  the  characters 
exhibited  by  species  in  nature,  has  ever  been  originated  by 
selection,  whether  natural  or  artificial." 

Lord  C.  What  say  you,  Mr.  Darwin,  to  this  statement  of 
Professor  Huxley  ? 

Darwin.  I  cannot  contradict  it,  my  Lord  ;  but,  in  the 
passage  quoted,  Professor  Huxley  is  referring  to  a  former 
work  of  mine  on  THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  BY  MEANS  OF 
NATURAL  SELECTION  ;  or,  The  Preservation  of  Favoured 
Races  in  the  Struggle  for  Life.  But  Homo  should  have 
stated  what  follows.  The  Professor  adds,  "  "We  will  go  so 
far  as  to  express  our  belief  that  experiments,  conducted  by 
a  skiifal  physiologist,  would  very  probably  result  in  ob- 
taining the  desired  production  in  a  comparatively  few  years." 

Homo.  The  Professor  is  a  skilful  physiologist,  my  Lord  ; 
let  him  then  try  the  experiment.  I  shall  willingly  wait  a  few 
years  to  see  the  result.  But  numberless  experiments  have 
unquestionably  been  made  already.  Mr.  Darwin  has  no 
doubt  tried  some  himself— unsuccessfully  of  course,  else  we 
should  not  yet  have  heard  the. end  of  it.  Let  him  try 
again.  To  originate  a  new  species  would  confer  immor- 
tality on  any  physiologist.  But  I  suspect  that  like  will 
persist  in  producing  its  like,  in  spite  of  naturalists  and  their 
experiments. 

Lord  C.  Pray  do  not  get  excited,  Homo  ;  keep  calm. 

Homo.  I  cannot  help  it,  my  Lord,  when  I  find  myself 
led  on  such  a  wild-goose  chase  after  ancestors  that  never 
existed,  and  that  would  be  no  credit  to  me  if  they  had. 

Lord  C.  Do  not  be  too  confident ;  perhaps  Mr.  Darwin 
may  find  one  of  them  for  you  yet.  As  I  understand  the 
case  so  far,  then,  it  stands  thus.  Professor  Huxley,  with 


24  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

assuredly  no  bias  against  Mr.  Darwin's  views — indeed,  it  is 
well  known  that  his  bias  is  in  favour  of  them — yet  declares 
that  no  instance  can  be  adduced  in  which  a  distinct  species 
of  animal  has  been  originated  by  what  you  call  Natural 
Selection.  It  may  be  possible,  the  Professor  believes,  that  a 
skilful  physiologist  might  in  a  few  years  succeed  in  origin- 
ating a  distinct  species,  but  it  has  not  yet  been  done. 
Probably,  as  Homo  suggests,  experiments  have  been  made 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  this  desired  production,  but 
hitherto  without  success.  Nature  has,  as  yet,  proved  too 
stubborn  for  the  physiologist.  Nor  is  there  any  clear  and 
distinct  proof  that  any  species  has  ever  been  originated  by 
Natural  Selection.  No  instance  can  be  pointed  to  in  which 
the  thing  has  certainly  and  unmistakeably  been  accom- 
r  plished.  Those  who  "  believe  in  the  general  principle  of 
'  evolution"  are  "convinced  by  general  reasons,"  not  by 
;  tangible  and  indisputable  facts. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  a  large  number  of  naturalists  admit 
that  species  are  the  modified  descendants  of  other  species  ; 
and  this  especially  holds  good  with  the  younger  and  rising 
naturalists.  The  greater  number  accept  the  agency  of 
Natural  Selection;  though  some  urge,  whether  with  justice 
the  future  must  decide,  that  I  have  greatly  overrated 
its  importance.  Of  the  older  and  honoured  chiefs  in 
natural  science,  many,  unfortunately,  are  still  opposed  to 
evolution  in  every  form."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  1,  2.) 

Lord  C.  This  is  certainly  "unfortunate"  for  your 
hypothesis  ;  but  whether  it  be  unfortunate  for  the  interests 
of  truth,  the  future,  as  you  say,  must  decide.  The  point, 
however,  on  which  I  am  now  remarking  is  this  ;  you  have 
absolutely  no  facts  as  a  basis  for  your  hypothesis.  It  is 
supported,  as  I  understand,  not  by  facts,  but  by  "  general 


I- 


FIRST  DAY'S  SITTINO.  25 

Darwin.  Those  "  general  reasons,"  my  Lord,  are  based 
n  facts. 

Lord  C.  Quite  so,  Mr.  Darwin.  Your  book,  I  am  well 
aware,  is  full  of  facts.  Of  course,  you  reason  from  those 
facts,  and  endeavour  to  build  up  your  hypothesis  on  them  ; 
but  "  the  older  and  honoured  chiefs  in  natural  science  "  see 
nothing  in  your  facts  to  sustain  "  evolution  in  any  form." 
You  have  no  facts  that  directly  and  unmistakeab'y  prove 
evolution.  The  facts  you  find  may  be  the  remote  descend- 
ants of  the  facts  you  do  not  find,  but  we  need  to  be 
assured  of  their  descent.  By-and-by  we  shall  consider 
the  "  general  reasons  "  which  have  led  some  to  "  believe  in 
the  general  principle  of  evolution."  But,  first,  let  me  re- 
quest you  to  observe  that,  when  you  speak  of  "  breaks  in 
the  organic  chain  as  incessantly  occurring  in  all  parts  of 
the  series  ...  as  between  the  orang  and  its  nearest 
allies,  between  the  Tarsius  and  the  other  Lemuridae,"  &c., 
you  are  taking  for  granted,  instead  of  proving,  the  reality 
of  these  breaks.  They  are  breaks  if  your  hypothesis  is 
true,  but  not  otherwise. 

Homo.  It  might  help  our  progress  in  the  argument,  my 
Lord,  if  Mr.  Darwin  will  tell  us  whether  he  will  undertake 
to  prove,  regarding  any  animal  of  the  present  day,  that  it 
is,  however  slowly,  yet  unquestionably,  progressing  towards 
a  higher  form.  In  his  work  "  On  the  Origin  of  Species," 
first  edition,  page  184,  he  says,  "  In  North  America  the 
black  bear  was  seen  by  Hearne  swimming  for  hours,  with  a 
widely  open  mouth,  thus  catching,  almost  like  a  whale, 
insects  in  the  water.  Even  in  so  extreme  a  case,  if  the 
supply  of  insects  were  constant,  and  if  better  adapted  com- 
petitors did  not  appear,  I  can  see  no  difficulty  in  a  race  of 
bears  being  rendered,  by  Natural  Selection,  more  and  more 
aquatic  in  their  structure  and  habits,  with  larger  and  larger 

c 


26  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

mouths,  till  a  creature  was  produced  as  monstrous  as  a 
whale." 

Lard  C.  I  never  heard  of  a  whale  catching  insects  in  the 
water,  nor  even  of  a  bear  doing  so.  What  sort  of  insects 
were  they  ? 

Homo.  That  information,  my  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin  does 
not  give  us.  It  would  manifestly  require,  however,  a 
prodigious  quantity  of  any  kind  of  insects  that  we  are 
acquainted  with  to  fatten  a  bear  into  a  whale.  But  I  want 
to  know  if  Natural  Selection  is  at  present  carrying  on  a 
process  of  this  kind  with  any  race  of  animals  whatever. 

Darwin.  Homo  ought  to  have  mentioned,  my  Lord,  that 
the  passage  he  has  just  read  is  omitted  from  the  subsequent 
editions  of  the  work  in  which  it  appeared. 

Homo.  I  am  aware  it  is  omitted,  my  Lord,  and  also  that 
no  reason  for  the  omission  is  given.  Mr.  Darwin  does  not 
pay  whether  he  omitted  it  because  he  had  seen  reason  to 
change  his  mind  regarding  the  power  of  Natural  Selection, 
or  whether  it  was  because  some  of  his  fellow  naturalists 
thought  the  statement  so  monstrous  that  they  requested  its 
suppression.  For  one  might  think  that,  if  Natural  Selection 
could  turn  black  bears  into  creatures  like  whales,  it  might 
also,  especially  when  aided  by  the  contrivances  of  human 
reason,  turn  pigs  into  creatures  like  elephants. 

Lord  0.  Are  you  not  going  beyond  Mr.  Darwin,  Homo, 
in  conceiving  such  an  idea  ? 

Homo.  I  think  not,  my  Lord.  A  pig  is  quite  as  like 
an  elephant  as  a  black  bear  is  like  a  whale.  Indeed,  the 
pig  has  the  advantage.  Its  habitat  is  on  dry  land,  like 
that  of  the  bear.  Then,  its  snout  bears  a  remote  resem- 
blance to  the  trunk  of  an  elephant.  Lamarck  supposed  that 
the  giraffe  acquired  its  long  neck  by  having  had  originally 
to  seek  its  food  in  the  overhanging  hnmche-;  of  trees.  The 


FIRST   DAY'S  SITTIXQ.  27 

neck  was  gradually  lengthened  by  being  constantly  stretched. 
Now,  my  Lord,  there  might  surely  be  some  contrivance  by 
which  pigs,  would  have  to  stretch  their  snouts  to  reach 
their  food.  If  there  is  no  difficulty — and  Mr.  Darwin  sees 
none— in  a  race  of  bears  becoming  changed  by  Natural 
Selection  into  creatures  as  "monstrous"  as  whales,  why 
should  there  be  any  difficulty  in  a  race  of  pigs  being  changed 
by  Natural  Selection,  aided  by  human  reason,  into  creatures 
as  "  monstrous  "  as  elephants  ?  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us  in  the 
last  edition  of  the  work  in  question,  page  89,  that  "  pigs 
have  often  been  born  with  a  sort  of  proboscis,  like  that  of 
the  tapir  or  elephant."  Let  him,  then,  procure  one  of  these 
pigs,  and  he  will  have  the  work  half  done  to  his  hand. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  has,  no  doubt,  changed  his  opinion 
on  this  point ;  at  all  events,  it  is  wisely  appointed  by  the 
Great  Author  of  nature  that  men  shall  not  be  able  to  play 
fantastic  tricks  with  the  established  order  of  things.  Species 
may  certainly  be  modified  within  a  certain  limited  range, 
but  each  appears  to  have  its  bounds,  which  it  cannot  pass. 
If  man  were  able,  by  crossing,  or  by  placing  animals  under 
new  conditions,  or  in  any  other  way,  to  produce  new  kinds, 
why,  the  world  would  be  full  of  all  sorts  of  monsters — of 
creatures  more  strange  than  fancy  or  imagination  has  ever 
pictured.  Let  me  now  ask  Mr.  Darwin  whether  any  fossil 
remains  of  the  "ape-like  progenitors  of  man,"  or  of  the 
"  hairy  quadruped  "  which,  he  says,  is  the  common  ancestor 
of  them  all,  have  been  found  ? 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  with  respect  to  the  absence  of  fossil 
remains  serving  to  connect  man  with  his  ape-like  pro- 
genitors, no  one  will  lay  much  stress  on  this  fact  who  will 
read  Sir  Charles  Lyell's  discussion,  in  which  he  shows 
that,  fii^the  ^vertebrate  classes,  the  discovery  of  fossil 
remains  has  been  an  extremely  slow  and  fortuitous  process. 

C  2 


28  HOilO  V.  DARWIN. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  those  regions  which  are  the 
most  likely  to  afford  remains  connecting  man  with  soine 
extinct  ape-like  creature  have  not,  as  yet,  been  searched  by- 
geologists."  (Vol.  i.  p.  201.) 

Lord  G.  To  what  regions  do  you  refer  as  most  likely  to 
contain  such  remains  ? 

Darwin.  "  It  is  probable,"  my  Lord,  "  that  Africa  was 
formerly  inhabited  by  extinct  apes,  closely  allied  to  the 
gorilla  and  chimpanzee  ;  and  as  these  two  species  are  now 
man's  nearest  allies,  it  is  somewhat  more  probable  that  our 
early  progenitors  lived  on  the  African  continent  than  else- 
where. But  it  is  useless  to  speculate  on  this  subject,  for 
an  ape  nearly  as  large  as  a  man  .  .  .  existed  in  Europe 
I  daring  the  Upper  Miocene  period  ;  and  since  so  remote  a 
period  the  earth  has  certainly  undergone  many  great  revolu- 
tions, and  there  has  been  ample  time  for  migration  on  the 
largest  scale."  (Vol.  i.  p.  199.) 

Lord  C.  Man's  progenitors,  then,  like  this  ape,  may  have 
been  Europeans. 

Dani-in.  AYhat  I  have  said,  my  Lord,  implies  th;  t. 

Lord  C.  In  which  case,  Europe  ought  to  contain  fossil 
remains  of  our  supposed  progenitors  ;  yet  you  can  point  to 
none  that  have  been  found  in  Europe. 

Darwin.  The  discovery  of  fossil  remains,  my  Lord,  as  Sir 
\Charles  Lvell  says,  has  always  "  been  an  extremely  slow  ami 
fortuitous  pro 

Lord  C.  Am  I  then  to  understand  that,  as  yet,  no  fossil 
remains  of  any  kind  have  been  found  anywhere,  which  can 
be  produced  in  proof  of  your  hypothesis — no  fossil  remains, 
either  of  the  immediate,  or  the  remote,  progenitors  of  man  ? 

hum-in.  In  answer  to  this  question,  I  must  refer  your 
Lo;dfchip  to  my  quotation  from  Sir  Charles  Lyell. 

Uoniu.  Pray,  atk  him,  my  Lord,  if  geologihta  have  found 


FIRST  DAY'S   SITTING.  29 

fossil  remains  which  they  can  prove  to  be  those  of  the 
progenitors  of  any  race  of  animals  now  living  on  the  earth. 
Have  they  found  fossil  remains  which  they  can  prove  to 
belong  to  the  progenitors  of  the  eagle,  or  of  the  horse,  or 
of  the  donkey,  or  the  whale — of  any  creature,  in  short, 
from  a  mouse  or  a  mole  up  to  a  man?  I  am  aware,  indeed, 
that  fossil  remains  of  animals  thought  to  resemble  the 
horse  have  been  found,  but  Mr.  Darwin  might  as  easily 
prove  that  the  donkey  is  descended  from  the  dromedary, 
as  that  the  horses  of  the  present  day  are  descended  from 
the  Hippotherium. 

Lord  G.  And  yet  some  naturalists  are  of  this  opinion. 

Homo.  That,  my  Lord,  may  very  easily  be  accounted  for. 

'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view  ; 

— distance,  aided  by  these  three  most  potent  auxiliaries, 
Ignorance,  Imagination,  and  Presumption.  TVhy,  my 
Lord,  if  these  extinct  forms  were  now  living  around  us, 
naturalists  would  no  more  venture  to  affirm  them  to  be  the 
progenitors  -of  the  horse,  than  they  dare  tell  us  that  our 
cats  are  descended  from  the  Bengal  tiger,  or  our  dogs 
from  the  African  lion  ;  or — to  take,  perhaps,  a  more 
apposite  case — that  the  gorilla  is  the  father  race  to  the 
gibbon  and  the  chimoanzee.  Why  is  it,  my  Lord,  that 
naturalists  do  not  come  into  the  light  of  existing  facts,  and 
point  out  to  us  some  living  species  that  has  sprung  from 
some  other  living  species  ?  They  know  that  existing  facts 
would  not  bear  them  out.  Hence  they  grope  their  way,  by 
the  aid  of  fossil  bones,  millions  of  ages  back  into  the  past  ; 
and  there,  amid  its  pitchy  darkness,  they  fancy  they  see  tho 
desired  transformations  taking  place.  Worms  become  ^ 
fishes,  and  fishes  change  "insensibly  "  into  fowls  !  Amphi- 
bians produce  reptiles,  and  reptiles  become  the  nurses 


30  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

quadrupeds  !  Black  bears  turn  into  creatures  like  whales, 
and  the  monster  Hippotherium  gives  birth  to  the  horse  \  , 
Then  comes  the  crowning  marvel  of  all.  Quadrupeds  pro- 
duce  monkeys,  and  from  monkeys  "  Man,  the  wonder  and 
glory  of  the  universe,  proceeds.'!  All  this,  of  course, 
requires  time.  But  there  is  no  difficulty  with  them  about 
time.  The  pendulum  of  Mr.  Darwin's  clock  swings  but 
once  in  a  century.  With  men  of  his  type  of  mind,  a 
thousand  ages  are  but  as  a  moment.  They  know  perfectly 
well  what  took  place  during  the  "Upper  Miocene  period," 
myriads  of  centuries  ago.  Our  men  of  science  can  go  back 
almost  a  whole  eternity,  even  to  the  time  of  the  primeval 
mist,  when  the  foundations  of  the  world  were  laid,  and  then 
return  and  tell  us  how  it  was  done  !  Ugh  ! !  I  am  sick  of 
them  and  their  assumptions,  and  am  reminded  by  them  of 
those  ancient,  but  too  true  words,  "Professing  themselves 
to  be  wise,  they  became  fools." 

Lord  C.  You  are  waxing  rhetorical,  Homo.  I  must 
remind  you  that  facts  and  calm  reasoning  have  more  weight 
than  rhetoric.  Besides,  must  not  periods  of  enormous 
length  have  been  necessary  to  work  out  the  changes  in 
the  condition  of  the  earth  revealed  by  geology  ? 

Homo.  I  do  not  question  that  at  all,  my  Lord  ;  but  I 
object  to  men  who  call  themselves  "scientific,"  in  order  to 
find  support  for  a  favourite  hypothesis,  leaving  the  light  of 
ascertained  and  indisputable  facts,  groping  their  way  into 
darkness,  which  would  be  felt  by  any  but  themselves,  and 
bringing  us  back  from  thence  mere  fancies  of  their  own, 
which  they  require  us  to  accept  as  truths,  and  which,  if 
received,  must  tend  to  darken  and  degrade  the  noble  nature 
I  God  has  given  us.\  It  is  clear,  my  Lord,  from  the  paintings 
I  on  Egyptian  monuments,  and  the  mammies  of  sacred 
animals  found  in  Egyptian  tombs,  that,  for  thneg  thousand 


FIRST   DAY'S  SITTING.  31 

years  at  least,  there  has  been  no  change  in  certain  species. 
They  have  retained  the  same  general  form,  and  even  the 
same  specific  differences,  for  thirty  centuries.  And  man 
himself  has  not  changed  during  that  time. 

Lord  C.  But  is  there  not  a  great  difference  between 
three  thousand  years  and  three  million  years  ? 

Homo.  My  Lord,  if  you  multiply  nothing  by  three 
millions,  or  even  by  three  hundred  millions,  it  will  be 
nothing  still.  If  three  thousand  years  have  literally  done 
nothing  to  develop  one  species  into  another — and  this  may 
be  demonstrated  to  be  the  fact — three  thousand  million 
\ears  would  do  as  little. 

Lord  C.  We  must  return  now  to  the  subject  of  fossil 
remains.  It  is  clear,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  none  have  as  yet 
been  found  anywhere,  to  which  you  can  refer  as  proving 
the  truth  of  your  hypothesis. 

Homo.  My  Lord,  England,  and  also  the  Continent, 
abound  in  fossil  remains.  Our  chalk  hills  are  full  of  them, 
and  so  are  miles  upon  miles  of  the  earth's  strata  all  around 
us.  Railway  contractors  have  been  cutting  through  them 
in  every  direction  for  nearly  half  a  century  ;  yet  geologists 
cannot  supply  Mr.  Darwin  with  a  bone,  or  even  a  tooth, 
which  can  help  him  to  prove  his  assertions,  not  only  as  to 
man's  origin,  but  as  to  the  origin  of  any  species  of  creature 
now  living.  He  asserts  that  all  living  species  have  been 
produced  by  Natural  Selection  from  other  species.  Let  him, 
then,  produce  fossil  remains  which  he  can  prove  to  be  those 
of  the  progenitors  of  any  species  of  living  animal,  if  he  can. 

Lord  C.  It  is  vain  to  abk  for  that,  Homo;  it  appears  it 
can't  be  done. 

//6//*0.  So  it  seems,  my  Lord  ;  and  thus,  while,  accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Darwin,  there  has  been  not  only  a  chain  of 
descent  connecting  man  with  this  hairy  quadruped,  but 


32  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

also  numerous  other  chains  connecting  the  various  monkey 
and  other  tribes,  now  living,  with  some  common  pro- 
genitor, not  only  does  Mr.  Darwin  fail  to  produce  those 
chains,  he  cannot  produce  even  a  fossil  link  of  one  of  them. 
Now,  my  Lord,  I  submit  that  this  can  be  accounted  for  only 
on  the  supposition,  either  that  these  chains  of  descent  are 
entirely  imaginary  and  never  existed,  or  that  the  creatures 
composing  them  were  cannibals,  and  so  devoured  one 
miother — bones  and  all 

Lord  C.  A7e  come,  then,  to  this  conclusion,  Mr.  Darwin  ; 
that  as  to  "  the  ape-like  progenitors  of  man,"  connecting 
him  with  this  "  hairy  quadruped,"  not  only  is  the  chain  of 
descent  missing,  but  all  the  links  of  the  chain  as  well.  You 
are  unable  to  produce  any  one  of  those  links.  But  further,- 
according  to  your  hypothesis,  every  distinct  species  of 
animal  now  existing  is  descended  from  the  same  primary 
stock  with  man.  There  must,  therefore,  have  been  "  a 
series  of  forms  graduating  insensibly  "  from  the  primary 
creature,  whatever  it  was,  to  each  distinct  kind  of  animal 
now  existing.  In  short,  there  must  have  been  chains  of 
des  ent  as  numerous  as  present  living  species.  If  you  could 
produce  some  of  these  chains  of  descent,  or  even  one  of 
them,  it  would  go  so  far  towards  rendering  it  probable 
that  man,  also,  has  his  chain  of  descent,  though,  un- 
fortunately, every  link  of  it  is  missing.  But,  as  in  the 
case  of  man,  so  in  the  case  of  all  other  species — you  cannot 
{•how  the  chain  of  descent  of  one  of  them,  or  produce  fossil 
evidence  that  it  ever  existed. 

Darwin.  As  I  have  already  remarked,  my  Lord,  "  no  one 
will  lay  much  stress  on  this  fact,  who  will  read  Sir  Charles 
Lyell's  discussion." 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING. 

Lend  C.  We  come  now,  Mr.  Darwin,  to  the  "general 
masons  M  which  you  regard  as  proving  "  the  general  principle 
•>f  evolution."  Will  you  begin  the  statement  of  them  ? 

Darwin.  First,  my  Lord,  "  there  is  the  Bodily  Structure  of 
Man.     It  is  notorious  that  man  is  constructed  on  the  same 
general  type  or  model  with  other  mammals.     All  the  bones 
in  his  skeleton  can  be  compared  with  corresponding  bones 
in  a  monkey,  bat,  or  seal.     So  it  is  with  his  muscles,  nerves,  ^ 
blood-vessels,  and  internal  viscera.     The  brain,  the  most 
important  of  all  the  organs,  follows  the  same  law,  as  shown' 
by  Huxley  and  other  anatomists."     (Vol.  i.  p.  10.) 

Homo.  I  freely  admit,  my  Lord,  the  general  correctness 
of  the  statement  Mr.  Darwin  has  just  made.  There  can  be 
no  question  as  to  man  possessing  an  animal  nature.  Who 
doubts  it  ?  The  belief  of  this  is,  I  suppose,  as  ancient  as 
man  himself.  /Neither  can  there  be  any  question  as  to 
man's  bodily  frame  being  constructed  on  the  same  general 
type  as  that  of  other  mammals  J  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
Like  other  mammals,  man  is  made  to  live,  and  move,  and 
have  his  being  on  the  earth.  He  eats  and  drinks  like  them. 
He  has  numerous  functions  to  perform,  precisely  similar  to 
theirs.  Hence,  necessarily,  his  bodily  structure  is  similar. 
I  do  not  see  how  he  could  have  been  constructed  otherwise. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Darwin  can  suggest  some  better  type  after 
which  man's  phjsieal  nature  might  have  been  modelled. 


34  HOMO  f.   DARWIN. 

Darwin.  That  is  a  task,  my  Lord,  which  I  have  not 
attempted. 

Homo.  And  very  wisely  so,  my  Lord.  He  could  as  little 
have  succeeded  in  it,  as  in  producing  a  new  species  from  an 
old  one,  or  in  finding  the  missing  links  of  some  one  of  the 
.missing  chains,  f  Every  animal  is  adapted  by  its  structure 
for  its  habitat,  and  mode  of  life.  Creatures  of  the  ape  kind, 
for  example,  with  a  rude  kind  of  hands,  and  feet  which  are 
also  hands,  being  fitted  for  clutching  branches  and  climbing 
trees,  are  essentially  arboreal  in  their  habits.  They  never 
willingly  leave  the  forest,  where  they  find  at  once  suitable 
food  and  needful  security:  .  Mr.  Darwin  would  as  little 
succeed  in  showing,  in  the  case  of  an  ape,  as  in  the  case  of 
a  man,  that  it  might  have  been  more  suitably  modelled  than 
it  is.  If  he  asks  me  why  my  bodily  structure  somewhat 
resembles  that  of  an  ape,  I  reply-^Certainly  not  because 
I  am  descended  from  an  ape,  but  because  I  require,  for  my 
hiil.itat  and  mode  of  life,  precisely  such  a  bodily  structure 
as  1  possess^J  Mr.  Darwin  should  show  that  man's  bodily 
structure  might  have  been  better  modelled  before  he  argues 
from  it  that  I  am  descended  from  an  ape.  If  this  argument, 
in  itself,  be  worth  anything,  it  would  prove,  quite  as  con- 
clusively, that  the  ape  is  descended  from  man. 

Lord  C.  If  you  could  show,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  man's  bodily 
structure  is  an  inconvenience  to  him,  or  that  it  might  have 
been  more  suitably  modelled,  this  would  go  so  far  towards 
supporting  your  argument.  On  the  supposition  of  man 
having  been  separately  created,  we  can  imagine  the  Creator 
moulding  his  animal  nature  after  the  same  general  type  as 
that  of  other  mammals,  though  we  can  hardly  suppose  Him 
following  that  type  so  far  as  then  -by  to  subject  this  new 
and  superior  creature  to  disadvantage.  It  appears  to  me 
an  important  point  that  man's  bodily  structure  should  be 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  35 

so  wonderfully — so  perfectly  adapted  to  the  purposes  for 
which  man  requires  it.  On  your  hypothesis,  man  owes  it 
entirely  to  the  power  of  Natural  Selection  that  he  is  what 
he  is! 

Hrnno.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  endows  what  he  calls  Natural 
Selection,  with  all  that  power  and  wisdom  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  attribute  to  the  Almighty.  In  his  work  on 
"  The  Origin  of  Species,"  he  says  regarding  it,  "  It  may  be 
metaphorically  said  that  Natural  Selection  is  daily  and 
hourly  scrutinizing,  throughout  the  world,  the  slightest 
variations  ;  rejecting  those  that  are  bad,  preserving  and 
adding  up  all  that  are  good ;  silently  and  insensibly 
working,  whenever  and  wherever  opportunity  offers,  at  the 
improvement  of  each  organic  being  in  relation  to  its  organ  c 
and  inorganic  conditions  of  life."  (p.  96.) 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "the  time  will,  before  long,  come 
when  it  will  be  thought  wonderful  that  naturalists,  who 
were  well  acquainted  with  the  comparative  structure  and 
development  of  man  and  other  mammals,  should  have 
believed  that  each  was  the  work  of  a  separate  act  of  creation." 
(VoL  i.  p.  33.) 

Lord  C.  That,  at  all  events,  is,  at  present,  the  prevailing 
belief  of  man  himself  as  to  his  origin. 

Darwin.  "  In  my  work,"  my  Lord,  "  on  '  THE  ORIGIN  OF 
SPECIES,'  I  had  two  distinct  objects  in  view  :  firstly,  to  show 
that  species  had  not  been  separately  created  ;  and  secondly, 
that  Natural  Selection  had  been  the  chief  agent  of  change-;" 
.  .  .  and  if,  in  that  work,  "  I  have  erred  in  giving  to  Natural 
Selection  great  powers,  which  I  am  far  from  admitting,  or  in 
having  exaggerated  its  power,  which  is  in  itself  probable,  I 
have,  at  least,  as  I  hope,  done  good  service  in  aiding  to  over- 
throw the  dogma  of  separate  creations."  (VoL  i.  pp.  152, 
153.) 


36  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

Lord  C.  You  should  not  allow  your  feeling  against  this 
"  dogma,"  as  you  call  it,  to  influence  you  too  strongly.  If 
you  can  show  it  to  be  a  mere  dogma,  by  establishing  your 
own  belief  on  a  basis  of  ascertained  and  indisputable  facts, 
it  will  soon  wither  and  perish.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  you 
are  at  present  building  your  hypothesis,  not  on  facts,  but 
on  "  general  reasons." 

Homo.  My  Lord,  what  is  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  but  a 
dogma  ?  It  is  Darwin's  dogma  of  man's  development  by 
Natural  Selection,  against  the  Bible  doctrine  of  man's 
creation  by  the  power  of  the  Almighty. 

Danvin.  I  should  also  mention,  my  Lord,  that  "man  is 
liiible  to  receive  from  the  lower  animals,  and  to  communicate 
to  them,  certain  diseases,  as  hydrophobia, variola,  the  glanders, 
&c.  ;  and  this  fact  proves  the  close  similarity  of  their  tissues 
and  blood,  both  in  minute  structure  and  composition,  far 
more  plainly  than  does  their  comparison  under  the  best 
microscope,  or  by  the  aid  of  the  best  chemical  analysis. 
Monkeys  are  liable  to  many  of  the  same  non-contagious 
diseases  as  we  are  ...  to  catarrh  . .  .  apoplexy,  inflammation 
of  the  bowels,  and  cataract  in  the  eyes  . .  .  Medicines  produce 
the  same  effect  on  them  as  on  us.  Many  kinds  of  monkeys  have 
a  strong  taste  for  tea,  coffee,  and  spirituous  liquors ;  they  will 
also,  as  I  have  myself  seen,  smoke  tobacco  with  pleasure 
.  .  .  These  trifling  facts  show  how  similar  the  nerves  of  taste 
must  be  in  monkeys  and  man,  and  how  similarly  their  whole 
nervous  system  is  affected."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  11,  12.) 

Lord  C.  No  one,  I  presume,  will  dispute  the  facts  you 
now  state  ;  but  similarity  of  nervous  system  in  man  and 
monkey,  and  liability  to  some  of  the  same  diseases,  is  one 
thing,  their  community  of  descent  is  quite  another.  I  have 
a  horse  that  catches  cold  occasionally  ;  he  has  also  a  strong 
relish  for  gooseberries  ;  he  will  follow  me  all  over  the  field, 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  87 

drawn  by  the  attraction  of  a  ripe  apple;  but  it  never  occurred 
to  me  to  infer  from  these  facts  that  my  horse  is  sprung  from 
the  same  progenitors  with  myself. 

Homo.  My  Lord,  the  world  has  been  familiar  with  such 
facts  for  thousands  of  years.  TVe  must  suppose,  therefore, 
I  presume,  that  it  has  been  man's  "  prejudice  and  natural 
arrogance  "  that  have  hitherto  prevented  him  from  drawing 
from  them  the  conclusion  which  Mr.  Darwin  now  draws 
for  him. 

Darwin.  The  next  line  of  proof  to  which  I  shall  direct 
your  Lordship's  attention  is  that  of  "Embryonic  Develop- 
ment.  Man  is  developed  from  an  ovule  about  the  125th  of 
an  inch  in  diameter,  which  differs  in  no  respect  from  the 
ovules  of  other  animals.  The  embryo  itself,  at  a  very  early 
period,  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  that  of  other 
members  of  the  vertebrate  kingdom."  (Vol.  i.  p.  14.) 

Lord  G.  Arn  to  understand  you  as  affirm iug  that  the. 
ovule  from  which  man  is  developed  "  differs  in  no  respect 
from  the  ovules  of  other  animals"? 

Darwin.  That  is  precisely  what  I  do  affirm,  my  Lord. 

Lord  C.  It  seems  to  me,  then,  I  must  say,  that  your 
statement  is  most  incautious.  If  you  had  said  that  the 
human  ovule  differs  in  no  resppot  iliat  you  can  discern  from 
that  of  other  animals,  I  should  not  have  objected  to  it. 
But  it  is  clear  that,  in  objects  so  minute,  there  may  be 
differences,  though  you  are  unable  to  detect  them.  Indeed, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  there  must  be  an  essential  difference, 
for  it  is  unquestionable  that  the  ovule  of  a  dog  can  pro- 
duce but  a  dog,  while  the  human  cvule  produces  man.  I 
cannot  see,  then,  what  ground  you  have  for  affirming  that 
the  human  ovule  "  differs  in  no  respect  fiom  the  ovules  of 
other  animals." 

Homo.  If  Mr.  Darwin  believes,  my  Lord,  that  the  .ovules 


38  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

of  animals  "  differ  in  no  respect "  from  one  another,  then  he 
must  also  believe  that  it  is  only  because  of  the  different 
conditions  under  which  they  are  developed,  that  different 
creatures  are  produced  from  them.  Under  the  same  con- 
ditions the  result  would  be  the  same,  and  all  born  creatures 
might  be  donkeys,  monkeys,  or  men.  It  follows,  also,  that 
in  the  germ,  all  creatures  are  not  only  similar,  but  abso- 
lutely identical.  Originally,  there  is  no  difference  between 
a  man  and  a  rhinoceros,  or  between  a  chimpanzee  and  a  sheep. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  will  doubtless  think  of  this,  end 
will,  perhaps,  modify  his  language  in  subsequent  editions 
of  his  work. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  as  some  readers  of  my  book  may 
never  have  seen  a  drawing  of  an  embryo,  I  have  given  one  of 
man,  and  another  of  a  dog,  at  about  the  same  early  stage  of 
development,  carefully  copied  from  two  works  of  undoubted 
accuracy."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  14,  15.) 

Lord  C.  (Examining  the  drawing.)  The  difference  is 
certainly  quite  as  striking  as  the  resemblance.  Any 
intelligent  child  could  indicate  the  points  of  dissimi- 
larity. 

Homo.  And  yet,  my  Lord,  the  ovules  from  which  such 
developments  proceed,  "  differ  in  no  respect "  from  one 
another. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  it  would  be  superfluous  on  my  part 
to  give  a  number  of  borrowed  details,  showing  that  the 
embryo  of  man  closely  resembles  that  of  other  mammals. 
It  may,  however,  be  added,  that  the  human  embryo  likewise 
resembles,  in  various  points  of  structure,  certain  low  forms 
when  adult."  (Vol.  i.  p.  1G). 

Lord  C.  I  suppose  that  no  one  who  has  looked  into  the 
matter  will  deny  that,  in  the  germs  and  embryonic  be- 
ginnings of  all  vertebrate  m-.'iturcs,  there  are  points  of 


SECOSD  DAY'S  SITTING. 


89 


Upper  figure,  a  human  embryo,  much  magnified,  after  Eclcer.  Lover 
figure,  embryo  of  a  dog,  also  magnified,  after  Bischojf. — Copied  from 
Mr.  Darwin's  work  on  "  The  Descent  of  Man" 


40  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

resemblance.  This  is  not  strange  considering  what  we  all 
admit,  viz.,  that  man  is  constructed  on  the  same  general  type 
or  model  with  other  mammals.  If  there  are  points  of  resem- 
blance between  full-grown  men  and  full-grown  animals,  it 
would  be  singular  indeed  were  there  no  points  of  resemblance 
between  their  embryos  while  in  process  of  development. 
But  these  points  of  resemblance  in  their  embryos  do  not 
prove  them  to  be  sprung  from  the  same  progenitors. 

Homo.  My  Lord,  I  was  conversing  on  this  subject  the 
other  day  with  a  gentleman  who  has  long  been  engaged  in 
the  manufacture  of  steam  engines.  Every  one  that  he  has 
produced  has  been  constructed  on  the  same  general  type. 
Each  of  them  has  a  general  resemblance  to  the  others. 
And  this  resemblance  might  have  been  detected  while  they 
were  being  fabricated.  The  process  of  manufacture  was 
similar  in  the  case  of  all  of  them.  Why,  then,  may  not  the 
All-wise  Creator,  in  the  building  up  of  the  material  frame- 
work of  the  successive  creatures  He  has  called  into  existence, 
pursue  a  similar  course  ? 

Lord  C.  That  is  a  question  for  Mr.  Darwin  to 
answer. 

Homo.  But  which  he  has  not  answered,  my  Lord.  The 
same  remark  might  be  made  regarding  works  of  art.  The 
productions  of  a  painter  or  sculptor,  for  example,  in  their 
beginnings  have  many  points  of  resemblance ;  but  are 
they  therefore  developed  one  from  another  ?  Are  they  not 
all  separate  creations,  though  planned  by  the  same  mind, 
an  1  elaborated  by  the  same  hand  ?  And  does  not  the 
painter  or  sculptor  try  that  each  of  his  productions  shuuld 
advance  on  those  that  have  preceded  it  ?  Dues  he  not  also 
bring  forward,  as  far  as  he  can,  into  each  successive  pro- 
duction, all  the  knowledge,  and  skill,  and  power,  that  Lave 
distinguished  his  former  productions  ?  It  seems  to  me 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  41 

my  Lord,  that,  in  the  physical  structure  of  man,  and  in  the 
building  up  of  that  structure,  we  see  just  a  similar  principle 
at  work.  Mr.  Darwin  might  as  well  maintain  that  all  steam 
engines  have  been  developed  from  the  tea-kettle,  or  all 
paintings  or  sculptures  from  some  common  prototype,  as 
that  njan,  because  of  some  points  of  resemblance  in  his 
structure  and  development  to  those  of  the  lower  animals,  is 
sprung  from  the  same  stock  with  them. 

Darwin.  You  know,  my  Lord,  how  I  feel  regarding  that 
dogma  of  "separate  acts  of  creation,"  on  which  Homo  seems 
now  to  be  falling  back. 

Lord  C.  I  am  well  aware  how  you  feel  regarding  it,  Mr. 
Darwin,  but,  as  you  see,  Homo  also  has  his  feelings.  He 
evidently  prefers  believing  that  man  has  been  created 
immediately  by  the  Divine  Being,  to  believing  that  he  is 
descended  from  "  a  hairy  quadruped,  with  a  tail  and 
pointed  ears,"  and  more  remotely  from  a  worm.  He  thinks, 
too,  that  he  has  good  grounds  for  his  belief.  fc  What  is  the 
next  point  ? 

Darwin.  "Rudiments"  my  Lord.  "Rudimentary  organs 
...  are  either  absolutely  useless,  such  as  the  mammae  of 
male  quadrupeds,  or  the  incisor  teeth  of  ruminants  which 
never  cut  through  the  gums  ;  or  they  are  of  such  slight 
service  to  their  present  possessors  that  we  cannot  suppose 
that  they  were  developed  under  the  conditions  which  now 
exist  .  .  .  Kudimentary  organs  are  eminently  variable. 
.  .  .  They  often  become  wholly  suppressed.  "When  this 
occurs  they  are  nevertheless  liable  to  occasional  reappear- 
ance through  reversion.  .  .  .  Every  one  must  have  noticed 
the  power  which  many  an'mals,  especially  horses,  possess  of 
moving  or  twitching  their  skin  ;  and  this  is  effected  by  the 
panniculus  carnosus.  Remnants  of  this  muscle,  in  an 
efficient  state,  are  found  in  various  parts  of  our  bodies  ; 

D 


42  HOMO    V.    DARWIX. 

for  instance,  on  the  forehead,  by  which  the  eyebrows  are 
raised  .  .  Some  few  persons  have  the  power  of  contracting 
the  superficial  muscles  on  their  scalps,  and  these  muscles 
are  in  a  variable  and  partially  rudimentary  condition.  M. 
A.  de  Candolle  has  communicated  to  me  a  curious  instance 
of  the  long  continued  persistence  or  inheritance  of  this 
power,  as  well  as  of  its  unusual  development.  He  knows 
a  family  in  which  one  member,  the  present  head  of  a  family, 
could,  when  a  youth,  pitch  several  heavy  books  from  his 
head  by  the  movement  of  the  scalp  alone  ;  and  he  won 
wagers  by  performing  this  feat."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  17-20.) 

Homo.  I  question,  my  Lord,  whether  Mr.  Darwin  could 
produce  any  one  of  the  lower  animals  capable  of  performing 
this  feat.  I  know  there  are  horses  that  can  win  wagers  by 
racing,  but  I  never  yet  heard  of  one  that  could  do  so  by  pitch- 
ing heavy  books  from  his  head  by  the  movement  of  the 
scalp  alone.  No  animal  can  do  this.  It  is  idle  therefore 
to  refer  to  the  case  Mr.  Darwin  has  adduced,  as  an  ins'ance 
of  rudimentary  structure.  As  to  man's  power  of  raising 
his  eyebrows  and  wrinkling  his  forehead,  it  is  part  of 
the  " power  of  face"  with  which  his  Maker  has  endued 
him.  But  there  is  a  great  difference  between  a  horse 
twitching  his  skin,  when  tickled  or  stung  by  a  fly,  and  a 
naturalist  raising  his  eyt brows  when  he  thinks  he  hus 
detected  some  fresh  rudimentary  structure  in  man  which 
will  justify  his  classing  him  with  the  lower  animals.  Per- 
haps Mr.  Darwin  will  tell  us  how  it  happens  that  a  man 
can  express  high  intelligence,  deep  thought,  loving  sym- 
pathy, by  the  movements  of  the  muscles  of  his  face  alone, 
while  a  horse  cannot  eirress  them  by  twitching  his  skin  all 
his  body  over. 

Lanrin.  My  Lord,  *'  Professor  Turner,  of  Edinburgh,  has 
informed  me  that  he  las  occasionally  detected  nuibcular 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  43 

fasciculi  in  five  different  situations,  namely,  in  the  axilla), 
near  the  scapulae,  Ac.,  all  of  which  must  be  referred  to  the 
system  of  the  panniculus."  (Vol.  i.  p.  19.) 

Lord  C.  You  have  just  said  that  "  rudimentary  organs  are 
eminently  variable."  Is  it  not  also  so  with  the  muscles  of  the 
human  body  ?  Do  they  not  vary  in  different  individuals  ? 

Darwin.  "  The  muscles  "  of  the  human  body  "  are  emi- 
nently variable,"  my  Lord.  "  Thus,  those  of  the  foot  were 
found  by  Professor  Turner  not  to  be  strictly  alike  in  any 
two  out  of  fifty  bo  lies.  .  .  Mr.  J.  Wood  has  recorded  the 
occurrence  of  295  muscular  variations  in  thirty-six  subjects, 
and  in  another  set  of  the  same  number,  no  less  than  558 
variations,  reckoning  both  sides  of  the  body  as  one.  .  .  . 
A  single  body  presented  the  extraordinary  number  of 
twenty-five  distiuct  abnormalities.  .  .  .  The  famous  old 
anatomist,  Wolff,  insists  that  the  internal  viscera  are  more 
variable  than  the  external  parts.  .  .  .  He  has  even  written 
a  treatise  on  the  choice  of  typical  examples  of  the  viscera 
for  representation."  (Vol.  i.  p.  109.) 

Lord  C.  I  presume  that,  as  to  his  physical  structure,  man 
varies  as  much  internally  as  he  does  externally  ? 

Darwin.  "  It  is  manifest,"  my  Lord,  "  that  man  is  now 
subject  to  much  variability.  No  two  individuals  of  the 
same  race  are  quite  alike.  We  may  compare  millions  of 
faces,  and  each  will  be  distinct.  There  is  an  equally  great 
amount  of  diversity  in  the  proportions  and  dimensions  of 
the  various  parts  of  the  body  ;  the  length  of  the  legs  be.ng 
one  of  the  most  variable  points."  (Vol.  i.  p.  108.) 

Lord  C.  How  do  you  think  those  variations  are  to  be 
accounted  for  ? 

Darwin.  "  With  respect  to  the  causes  of  variability,"  my 
Lord,  "  we  are  in  all  cases  very  ignorant ;  but  we  can  see 
that  in  man,  as  in  the  lower  animals,  they  stand  in  some 

D  2 


44  HOMO  V.   BAR W IX. 

relation  with  the  conditions  to  which  each  species  has  been 
exposed  during  several  generations.  Domesticated  animals 
vary  more  than  those  in  a  state  of  nature  ;  and  this  is 
apparently  due  to  the  di verbified  and  changing  nature  of 
their  conditions.  The  different  races  of  man  resemble  in 
this  respect  domesticated  animals.  .  .  .  We  see  the  influence 
of  diversified  conditions  in  the  more  civilized  nations.  .  .  . 
The  uniformity  of  savages  has  often  been  exng^'rated,  and, 
in  some  cases  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist."  (Vol.  i.  p.  141.) 

Lord  C.  No  one  can  doubt  the  existence  of  numerous 
variations  in  man  and  the  lower  animals,  but  we  need  not 
at  present  inquire  further  into  its  causes.  Doubtless,  as 
you  say,  "we  are  in  all  cases  very  ignorant"  as  "to  the 
causes  of  variability."  The  point  now  to  be  considered  is — 
Does  the  existence  of  such  variations,  as  you  have  just  told 
us  Professor  Turner,  of  Edinburgh,  has  infbimed  you  of, 
prove  man  to  be  allied  to  the  lower  animals  ?  Do  they 
bhow  him  to  be  descended  from  the  "hairy  quadruped"  you 
speak  of,  or  from  the  larvae  of  ancient  Ascidians  ? 

Darwin.  "  In  order,"  my  Lord,  "  that  an  ape- like 
creature  should  have  been  transformed  into  man,  it  is 
necessary  that  this  early  form,  as  well  as  many  successive 
links,  should  all  have  varied  in  mind  and  body.  It  is 
impossible  to  obtain  direct  evidence  on  this  head  ;  but  if  it 
can  be  shown  that  man  now  varies — that  his  variations  are 
induced  by  the  same  general  causes,  and  by  the  same 
general  laws,  as  in  the  case  of  the  lower  animals — there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  preceding  intermediate  links  varied 
in  a  like  manner."  (Vol.  i.  p.  107.) 

Lord  C.  I  should  say  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever 
that  if  "the  preceding  intermediate  links"  ever  really 
existed,  tl^-y  "  varied"  just  as  men  and  anim;ils  vary  now. 
But  you  Lave  first  to  prove  that  they  really  have 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  45 

The  fact  that  man  now  varies  shows  that  he  has  got  an 
animal  nature,  but  I  cannot,  for  the  life  of  me,  see  how 
this  circumstance  proves  him  to  be  connected  with  the 
lower  animals  in  descent.  On  the  supposition  that  man 
exists  as  the  result  of  a  separate  act  of  creation,  it  mi^ht  be 
expected  that,  exposed  as  he  is  to  so  many  diversified  and 
changing  conditions,  his  bodily  structure  would  exhibit, 
both  internally  and  externally,  quite  as  numerous  variations 
as  are  found  in  it. 

Homo.  My  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin,  after  stating  what  he  calls 
"  the  laws  of  variation,"  tells  us  that  they  apply,  "  most  of 
them,  even  to  plants."  (Vol.  i.  p.  113).  Now,  we  know  that 
plants  of  the  same  kind  vary  among  themselves  endlessly. 
The  oak,  for  example,  varies  both  in  its  roots  below  and  in  its 
branches  above.  I  suppose  that,  as  in  man,  "  the  length 
of  the  legs  is  one  of  the  most  variable  points,"  so  in  the  oak 
is  the  length  of  its  roots  and  branches.  Will  Mr.  Darwin 
maintain,  then,  that  the  variations  in  an  oak  tree,  and  among 
them  the  different  lengths  of  its  roots  and  branches,  prove 
the  oak  to  be  descended  from  some  lower  vegetable  form  ? 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  allow  me  to  remind  you  that  my 
argument,  derived  from  rudimentary  muscles  connected 
with  tiie  panniculus,  referred  to  by  Professor  Turner,  has 
not  been  answered. 

Lord  0.  What  has  Homo  to  say  in  reply  to  it  ? 

Homo.  I  would  say  first,  my  Lord,  in  Mr.  Darwin's  own 
words,  that  "  with  respect  to  the  causes  of  variability  we 
are  in  all  cases  very  ignorant ;"  and  secondly,  that  as  "  the 
muscles  are  eminently  variable,"  and  as  "  a  single  body 
presented  the  extraordinary  number  of  twenty-five  distinct 
abnormalities,"  it  should  hardly  surprise  us  that  these 
"variations"  and  "abnormalities"  sometimes  take  the 
direction  pointed  out  by  Professor  Turner.  I  may  als 


46  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

remind  your  Lordship  of  the  gentleman  Mr.  Darwin  told  us 
of,  who  "could  pitch  several  heavy  books  from  his  head  by  the 
movement  of  the  scalp  alone."  No  horse  has  got  muscles 
connected  with  the  panniculus  which  could  enable  him  to  per- 
form this  feat ;  nor  has  any  other  animal  that  I  ever  heard 
of.  Perhaps,  however,  Mr.  Darwin  may  think  that  some 
animal,  now  extinct,  possessed  this  extraordinary  power. 

Lord  C.  We  had  better  confine  our  attention  to  what  Mr. 
Darwin  says.  We  need  not  take  what  he  may  think  into 
account.  Will  he  now  go  on  ? 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  the  extrinsic  muscles  which  serve  to 
move  the  whole  external  ear,  and  the  intrinsic  muscles 
which  move  the  different  parts,  all  of  which  belong  to  the 
system  of  the  panniculus,  are  in  a  rudimentary  condition  in 
man  ;  they  are  also  variable  in  development,  or  at  least  in 
function.  I  have  seen  one  man  who  could  draw  his  ears 
forwards,  and  another  who  could  draw  them  backwards,  and 
from  what  one  of  these  persons  told  me  it  is  probable  that 
most  of  us,  by  often  touching  our  ears,  and  thus  directing 
attention  to  them,  could,  by  repeated  trials,  recover  some 
power  of  movement.  The  faculty  of  erecting  the  ears,  and 
of  directing  them  to  different  points  of  the  compass,  is,  no 
doubt,  of  the  highest  service  to  many  animals,  as  they  thus 
perceive  the  point  of  danger  ;  but  I  have  never  heard  of  a 
man  who  possessed  the  least  power  of  erecting  his  ears — 
the  one  movement  which  might  be  of  use  to  him.  .  .  .  The 
ears  of  the  chimpanzee  and  orang  are  curiously  like  those 
of  man,  "and  I  am  assured  by  the  keepers  in  the  Zoological 
Gardens  that  these  animals  never  move  or  erect  them  ;  so 
that  they  are  in  an  equally  rudimentary  condition,  as  far  as 
function  is  concerned,  as  in  man.  Why  these  animals,  as 
well  as  the  progenitors  of  man,  should  have  lost  the  power 
of  erecting  their  curs,  we  cannot  say.  It  may  be,  though  I 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  47 

am  not  quite  satisfied  with  this  view,  that,  owing  to  their 
arboreal  habits  and  great  strength,  they  were  but  little 
exposed  to  danger,  and  so,  during  a  lengthened  period, 
moved  their  ears  but  little,  and  thus  gradually  lost  the 
power  of  moving  them."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  20-22.) 

Homo.  You  were  asking  Mr.  Darwin,  a  little  while  ago, 
my  Lord,  whether  man  suffers  any  inconvenience  from 
his  bodily  structure  being  modelled  like  that  of  an  ape.  It 
now  appears  that  he  does ;  he  has  lost  the  power  of 
"erecting  his  ears,  the  one  movement  which  might  be  of 
use  to  him ! "  Why  should  he  not  try,  "  by  often  touching 
his  ears,  and  directing  his  attention  to  them,"  to  recover 
this  lost  power  ?  Our  national  schoolmasters  might  occa- 
sionally exercise  their  pupils  in  this  direction.  "  Erect  your 
ears,  boys,"  might  come  in  as  part  of  the  daily  drill.  If 
this  faculty,  which  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us  we  have  lost,  could 
be  recovered,  and  man  were  able,  like  a  donkey,  or  a  horse, 
to  direct  his  ears  to  different  points  of  the  compass,  he 
would  so  far  have  the  advantage  over  his  relations  in  the 
Z  oological  *  G  ardens. 

Lord  C.  The  schoolmaster  had  better  leave  this  matter 
to  Mr.  Darwin  and  the  younger  naturalists.  As  to  the 
power  of  erecting  his  ears  being  a  faculty  that  would  be  of 
uss  to  man,  I  should  think  he  possesses  a  more  useful 
faculty  in  being  able  easily  to  turn  his  head  in  any 
direction  he  pleases.  When  you  say,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  you 
cannot  tell  "  why  the  progenitors  of  man  should  have  lost 
the  power  of  erecting  their  ears,"  are  you  not  taking  for 
granted  what  should  first  be  proved,  viz.,  that  man  has 
had  progenitors  which  possessed  the  power  in  question  ? 

Homo.  Perhaps,  my  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin  will  tell  us  how 
man's  supposed  progenitors  came  to  have  external  ears  at 
all.  I  should  like  him  to  trace  the  development  of  the 


48  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

external  ear  from  the  Ascidian  to  the  ape,  or  at  least  to 
explain  the  process  to  us,  and  show  some  proof  that  his 
account  of  it  is  anything  more  than  a  mere  p:oduct  of 
his  imagination.  As  to  the  whole  external  shell  of  the  ear 
^>eing  a  rudiment,  and  therefore  useless,  I  should  like  to 
know  how  man  would  look  without  it  ;  yet,  if  Mr.  Darwin's 
principles  be  true,  we  must,  I  suppose,  eventually  lose  our 
ears,  just  as  we  have  lost  our  tails  ! 

Lord  C.  That  does  not  follow,  Homo.  Mr.  Darwin's 
principle  of  "  Sexual  Selection "  would,  I  presume,  come 
into  play  here.  Ladies  would  certainly  object  to  a  husband 
with  a  tail ;  hence  the  tail  must  go  :  but  as  they  would 
hardly  choose  one  without  ears,  the  ears,  I  suppose,  must 
remain. 

Homo.  And  thus,  ray  Lord,  the  fact  of  man  having  re- 
tained his  ears  while  losing  his  tail  would  be  accounted  for. 

Lord  C.  At  all  events,  Mr.  Darwin,  quite  apart  from  the 
question  of  rudiments,  humanity  would  certainly  object  to 
losing  its  ears. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  " the  celebrated  sculptor,  Mr;  Woolner, 
informs  me  of  one  little  peculiarity  in  the  external  ear, 
which  he  has  often  observed  both  in  men  and  women,  and 
of  which  he  perceived  the  full  signification.  .  .  .  The  pecu- 
liarity consists  in  a  little  blunt  point,  projecting  from  the 
inwardly  folded  margin  or  helix.  Mr.  Woolner  made  an 
exact  model  of  one  such  case,  and  has  sent  me  the  accom- 
panying drawing.  These  points  not  only  project  inwards, 
but  often  a  little  outwards,  so  that  they  are  visible  when 
the  head  is  viewed  from  directly  in  front  or  behind.  They 
are  variable  in  size  and  somewhat  in  posi;ion,  standing 
either  a  little  higher  or  lower,  and  they  sometimes  occur  on 
one  ear  and  not  on  the  other.  Now  the  meaning  of  these 
projections  is  not,  I  think,  doubtful.  .  .  .  The  helix  ob- 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  49 

viously  consists  of  the  extreme  margin  of  the  ear  folded 
inwards ;  and  this  folding  appears  to  be  in  some  manner 
connected  with  the  whole  external  ear  being  permanently 
pressed  backwards.  In  many  monkeys,  which  do  not  stand 
high  in  the  order,  as  baboons  and  some  species  of  macacus, 
the  upper  portion  of  the  ear  is  slightly  pointed,  and  the 
margin  is  not  at  all  folded  inwards  ;  but  if  the  margin  were 
to  be  thus  folded,  a  slight  point  would  necessarily  project 
inwards,  and  probably  a  little  outwards.  This  could  actually 
be  observed  in  a  specimen  of  the  A  teles  Beelzebulh  in  the 
Zoological  Gardens  ;  and  we  may  safely  conclude  that  it  is 
R  similar  structure — a  vestige  of  formerly  pointed  ears — 
which  occasionally  re-appears  in  man."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  22,  23.) 

Lord  C.  The  ladies  will  not  thank  you,  Mr.  Darwin,  for 
finding  "  the  Mark  of  the  Beast"  on  so  prominent  a  bodily 
member.  Those  of  them  who,  unfortunately,  have  it,  will 
now  be  covering  it  over  from  observation.  We  have  heard 
a  good  deal  of  late  about  M.B.  coats  ;  we  shall  be  hearing 
next,  I  suppose,  of  M.B.  ears.  But  how  do  you  account, 
Homo,  for  those  points  to  which  Mr.  Darwin  directs  atten- 
tion, as  occasionally  appearing  on  the  ear  ? 

Homo.  Why  should  not  the  ear,  my  Lord,  like  other 
portions  of  man's  structure,  be  modelled  after  preceding 
types  ?  The  figure  of  this  organ,  drawn  by  Mr.  Woolner, 
looks  reputable  enough,  even  though  it  may  have  a  point. 
Mr.  Darwin  has  told  us  that  the  famous  old  anatomist, 
Wolff,  wrote  *'  a  treatise  on  the  choice  of  typical  examples 
of  the  viscera."  Perhaps  some  rising  naturalist  may  favour 
us,  some  day,  with  a  treatise  on  typical  examples  of  the 
ear.  As  to  this  point  appearing  only  occasionally,  I  can  no 
_.ore  account  for  it  than  I  can  account  for  other  variations 
which  appear  only  occasionally.  If,  in  no  two  persons  is 
the  shape  of  the  ear  exactly  alike,  neither  is  the  colour  of 


50  HOMO   V.    DARWIX. 

the  eye.  Some  persons  have  black  eyes,  some  have  blue 
eyes,  and  some  have  them  grey,  or  even  green  ;  but  I  don't 
suppose  that  the  fact  of  some  of  the  lower  animals  having 
eyes  similarly  coloured  would  prove  them  to  be  our  relations. 
Mr.  Darwin  speaks  of  "  the  whole  external  ear  being  per- 
manently pressed  backwards,"  but  he  does  not  tell  us  how, 
or  by  whom,  this  was  done. 

Lord  C.  Is  not  that  portion  of  the  ear  called  the  lobe, 
occasionally  wanting  ?  I  have  seen  persons  with  scarcely 
any  lobe  whatever  to  their  ears.  "Would  Mr.  Darwin  argue 
from  this  fact  that  the  hairy  quadruped — man's  progenitor 
— while  he  had  pointed  ears,  was  unprovided  with  the  ap- 
pendage to  which  ladies  are  so  fond  of  attaching  ornaments  ? 
Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  will  perhaps  reply  to  that 
question  in  some  subsequent  edition  of  his  work.  But  I 
beg  to  suggest  another  point  for  his  consideration.  It  is 
well  known  that  the  nose  varies  in  development,  as  well  as 
the  ear,  and  that,  occasionally,  persons  have  what  is  called 
the  aquiline  nose.  Are  we  to  regard  this  as  a  vestige  of  a 
formerly  aquiline  nose  possessed  by  our  ape-like  progenitors, 

or  as  an  indication  that  we  are 
allied  to  the  eagle  and  the 
parrot,  the  beaks  of  these  crea- 
tures, and  even  the  mandibles 
of  the  cuttle-fish,  often  having 
this  peculiar  curve  ?  I  beg  also 
to  remark  that  there  are  other 
points  on  the  ear  besides  the  one 
in  question,  which  Mr.  Woolner 
does  not  show  on  his  model,  and 
to  which  .Mr.  Darwin  does  not 
refer.  In  this  engraving,  Mr.  Woolner's  point  is  shown  at 
A,  the  o  her  points  at  B  and  c. 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  51 

Lord  C.  Natural  Selection  would  thus  seem  to  be  rather 
fond  of  developing  points  on  the  ear.  But  those  additional 
points  to  which  you  direct  attention,  are  probably  of  some 
use  to  us. 

Homo.  Your  Lordship  forgets  that  Mr.  Darwin  considers 
the  whole  exten  al  shell  of  the  ear  to  be  a  rudiment,  and 
therefore  useless. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  the  nictitating  membrane,  or  third 
eyelid,  with  its  accessory  muscles  and  other  structures,  is 
especially  well  developed  in  birds,  and  is  of  much  functional 
importance  to  them,  as  it  can  be  rapidly  drawn  across  the 
whole  eyeball.  It  is  found  in  some  reptiles,  and  amphi- 
bians, and  in  certain  fishes,  as  in  sharks.  It  is  fairly  well 
developed  in  the  two  lower  divisions  of  the  mammalian 
series,  namely,  in  the  Monotremata  and  Marsupials,  and  in 
borne  few  of  the  higher  mammals,  as  in  the  walrus.  But 
in  man,  the  quadrumana,  and  most  other  mammals,  it  exists, 
as  is  admitted  by  all  anatomists,  as  a  mere  rudiment,  called 
the  semilunar  fold."  (Vol.  i.  p.  23.) 

Homo.  As  with  man's  ears,  my  Lord,  so  with  his  eyes. 
Why  should  they  not  be  modelled  after  the  type  of  pre- 
ceding forms  ?  Mr.  Darwin  ttlls  us  that  this  membrane 
is  of  "  much  functional  importance  to  birds,  as  it  can  be 
rapidly  drawn  across  the  whole  eyeball."  But  this  is  only 
like  telling  us  that  the  eye  is  of  much  functional  importance 
to  them,  as  they  can  see  with  it ;  or  the  wing,  as  they  can 
fly  with  it  ;  or  the  stomach,  as  they  can  digest  their  food 
with  it.  Mr.  Darwin  should  rather  have  told  us  how  it 
comes  to  pass  on  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection,  that 
while  birds  and  sharks  and  kangaroos  have  this  membrane, 
men  and  monkeys  should  be  destitute  of  it.  Their  having 
the  semilunar  fold  can  easily  be  accounted  for  by  the 


&2  nemo  v.  DARWIN. 

doctrine  of  typical  forms  ;  but  I  do  not  see  how  Natnral 
Selection  can  have  robbed  them  of  the  third  eyelid,  sup- 
posing they  had  ancient  progenitors  who  possessed  it. 

Lord  C.  No  doubt,  Mr.  Darwin,  by  the  exercise  of  a  little 
ingenuity,  could  give  some  explanation  of  this  point. 

Homo.  Imagination,  my  Lord,  is  a  great  power  with  Mr. 
Darwin,  but  very  probably  he  would  say-1-"  With  respect 
to  the  causes  (of  the  loss  of  the  third  eyelid  by  the  mam- 
malia) we  are  in  all  cases  very  ignorant." 

9 

Darwin.  "  The  sense  of  smell,"  my  Lord,  "  is  of  the 
highest  importance  to  the  greater  number  of  mammals — 
to  some,  as  the  ruminants,  in  warning  them  of  danger  ;  to 
others,  as  the  carnivora,  in  finding  their  prey ;  to  others, 
as  the  wild  boar,  for  both  purposes  combined.  But  the 
sense  of  smell  is  of  extremely  slight  service,  if  any,  even  to 
savages,  in  whom  it  is  generally  more  highly  developed 
than  in  the  civilized  races.  It  does  not  warn  them  of 
danger,  nor  guide  them  to  their  food  ;  nor  does  it  prevent 
the  Esquimaux  from  sleeping  in  the  most  foetid  atmosphere, 
nor  many  savages  from  eating  half-putrid  meat.  Those 
who  believe  in  the  principle  of  gradual  evolution  will  not 
readily  admit  that  this  sense,  in  its  present  state,  was 
originally  acquired  by  man,  as  he  now  exists.  No  doubt 
he  inherits  the  power  in  an  enfeebled,  and  so  far  rudi- 
mentary condition,  from  some  early  progenitor,  to  whom  it 
was  highly  serviceable,  and  by  whom  it  was  continually 
used.  We  can  thus,  perhaps,  understand  how  it  is,  as  Dr. 
Maudsley  has  truly  jemaiked,  that  the  sense  of  smell  in 
man  *  is  singularly  effective  in  recalling  viviJly  the  ideas 
and  images  of  forgotten  scenes  and  places ;'  for  we  see  in 
those  animals  which  have  this  sense  highly  developed,  such 
B8  dogs  and  horse?,  that  old  recollections  of  persons  and 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTIXO.  53 

places  are  strongly  associated  with  their  odour."  (Vol.  i. 
PP.  *3,  24.) 

Homo.  How  can  Mr.  Darwin  say,  my  Lord,  that  our 
sense  of  smell  is  of  "  extremely  slight  service  "  to  us,  or 
that  we  have  it  in  a  "  rudimentary  condition "  ?  The 
odours  wafted  from  the  flowers  in  his  own  garden  might 
have  taught  him  otherwise.  We  shculd  be  in  constant 
danger  of  being  blown  up  by  gas,  or  poisoned  by  the 
effluvium  from  sewers,  were  it  not  for  our  having  this 
sense.  But  I  forgot  that  Mr.  Darwin  believes  that  our 
forefathers  were  savages,  and  that  there  were  neither 
gardens,  gas,  nor  sewers  in  their  days. 

Lord  C.  I  am  surprised,  Mr.  Darwin,  at  what  you  say 
regarding  the  sense  of  smell.  If  it  does  not  assist  us,  as 
it  does  the  carnivora,  in  finding  our  prey,  it  certainly  warns 
us  of  danger,  and  is  often  a  source  of  enjoyment.  But  if  it 
were  more  fully  developed  than  it  is,  it  might  often  be  a 
cause  of  annoyance  to  us.  One  would  not  like,  for  example, 
to  be  always  smelling  a  rat,  even  when  rats  are  near  ;  or  to 
be  reminded,  by  certain  odours,  of  places  and  persons  we 
would  rather  forget. 

Homo.  My  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin  may  not  find  this  sense  of 
much  use  to  himself,  but  he  will  find  few  among  his  human 
allies  of  his  opinion  regarding  it.  Will  you  observe,  my 
Lord,  how  constantly  Mr.  Darwin  recurs  to  savage  life  in 
illustrating  his  subject  ?  He  seems  to  forget  that  he  is  a 
member  of  civilized  society,  and  has  to  do  with  civilized 
men. 

Lord  C.  You  must  remember,  Homo,  what  you  have  just 
said.  "Mr.  Darwin  believes  that  our  forefathers  were 
savages;"  he  argues  therefore  on  this  supposition. 

Homo.  I  know  he  does,  my  Lord  ;  but,  according  to 
him  Natural  Selection,  which  has  done  such  wonders  in 


54  HUMO   V.    DARWIN. 

developing  man's  intellect  and  perfecting  his  bodily  struc- 
ture, has  made  a  great  mistake  with  the  sense  of  smell.  It  is 
"  of  extremely  slight  service,''  he  tells  us,  "  even  to  savages." 
Aa  to  ourselves,  he  seems  to  regard  it  as  of  use  to  us  only 
in  helping  memory.  Natural  Selection  has  thus  dealt  un- 
wisely with  us,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin,  as  regards  the 
sense  of  smell.  Now,  I  think,  my  Lord,  that  this  opinion 
of  his  arises  from  his  contemplating  man  too  exclusively  from 
a  savage  point  of  view.  Those  who  believe  that  man  was 
not  originally  a  savage,  and  that  he  was  created  with 
physical  powers  much  the  same  as  he  pos.c esses  now,  can 
find  no  fault  with  the  development  in  him  of  the  sense  in 
question. 

Lord  C.  You  mean  that  what  Mr.  Darwin  says  regarding 
the  sense  of  smell  in  man,  seems  to  indicate  that  he  thinks 
himself  wiser  than  Natural  Selection. 

Homo.  Precisely  so,  my  Lord.  He  evidently  thinks  that, 
had  he  been  counsellor,  he  could  have  taught  Natural 
Selection  better.  He  would  have  advised  tbat  man  should 
not  inherit  this  sense  in  so  "enfeebled,  and  so  far  rudi- 
mentary a  condition  "  as  that  in  which  he  possesses  it. 

Lord  C.  In  this  case,  then,  I  think  Mr.  Darwin's  counsel 
would  not  have  been  good.  But  what  is  the  next  point 
that  comes  before  us  ? 

Darwin.  "  There  can  be  little  doubt,"  my  Lord,  "  that 
the  hairs  scattered  over  the  body"  of  man  "  are  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  uniform  hairy  coat  of  the  lower  animals." 
(Vol.  i.  pp.  21,  25). 

Homo.  I  think  there  is  great  doubt  of  this,  my  Lord  ; 
but  perhaps  Mr.  Darwin  will  now  tell  us  how  it  happens 
that  man  has  lost  the  hairy  coat  of  his  progenitors  ? 

Darwin.  I  shall  willingly  do  so,  my  Lord.  A  "most 
conspicuous  di  '»  renei  !M  kin  •  n  \\\-,\\\  !'>Tor  nniinuls 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  55 

is  the  nakedness  of  his  skin.  Whales  and  dolphins  (Cetacea), 
dngongs  (Sirenia),  and  the  hippopotamus  are  naked,  and 
this  may  be  of  advantage  to  them  in  gliding  through  the 
water  ;  nor  would  it  ba  injurious  to  them  from  the  loss  of 
-warmth,  as  the  species  which  inhabit  the  colder  regions  are 
protected  by  a  thick  layer  of  blubber,  serving  the  same 
purpose  as  the  far  of  seals  and  otters.  Elephants  and 
rhinoceroses  are  almost  hairless  ;  and  as  certain  extinct 
species  which  formerly  lived  under  an  arctic  climate  were 
covered  with  long  wool  or  hair,  it  would  almost  appear  as 
if  the  existing  species  <,f  both  genera  had  lost  their  hairy 
covering  from  exposure  to  heat.  This  appears  the  more 
probable,  as  the  elephants  in  India  which  live  in  cool  and 
elevated  districts  are  more  hairy  than  those  in  the  lowlands. 
May  we  then  infer  that  man  became  divested  of  hair  from 
having  aboriginally  inhabited  some  tropical  land  ?  (Vol.  i. 
pp.  148,  149.) 

Homo.  That  question  is  very  modestly  put,  my  Lord  ; 
but  how  about  the  hair  of  the  he&d  ? 

Darwin.  I  was  going  to  remark,  my  Lord,  that  "  the 
crown  of  the  head'*  in  man  "offers  a  curious  exception,  for 
at  all  times  it  must  have  been  one  of  the  most  exposed 
parts,  yet  it  is  thickly  clothed  with  hair.  In  this  respect, 
man  agrees  with  the  great  majority  of  quadrupeds,  which 
generally  have  their  upper  and  exposed  surfaces  more 
thickly  clothed  than  the  lower  surface.  Nevertheless,  my 
Lord,  the  fa<-t  that  all  the  other  members  of  the  order 
of  Primates,*  to  which  man  belongs,  although  inhabit- 
ing various  hoc  regions,  are  well  clothed  with  hair,  gene, 
rally  thickest  on  the  upper  surface,  is  strongly  opposed 

*  The  Primal o*.  affording  to  Linnaeus  include  man,  mon  ey, 
lemur,  anil  hat. 


5C  HOMO    V.    DARWIN. 

to    the   Frppcsili<n  that  nan   bcctnie  naked  through  the 
action  of  the  sun."     (Vol.  i.  p.  149.) 

Lord  C.  That  is  a  very  candid  admission,  Mr.  Darwin. 

Homo.  Doubtless  it  is,  my  Lord ;  and  also  a  very 
wise  admission,  the  thing  being  almost  self-evident.  But 
will  Mr.  Darwin  now  tell  us  how  man  lost  his  hairy 
covering  ? 

Darwin.  "  I  am  inclined  to  believe,"  my  Lord,  "  as  we 
shall  see  under  Sexual  Selection,  that  man,  or  rather,  pri- 
marily woman,  became  divested  of  hair  for  ornamental 
purposes  ;  and  according  to  this  belief,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  man  should  differ  so  greatly  in  hairiness  from  all  his 
lower  brethren,  for  characters  gained  through  Sexual 
Selection  often  differ,  in  closely  related  forms,  to  an  extra- 
ordinary degree."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  149,  150.) 

ffomo.  A  most  extraordinary  supposition,  my  Lord  ! 
Mun  was  originally  a  hairy  animal  himself,  and  hence  other 
hairy  animals  were  his  "brethren."  Probably,  in  those 
days,  the  whale,  and  the  dolphin,  and  the  hippopotamus, 
had  not  become  so  hairless  as  they  are  now.  It  seems 
somewhat  singular,  then,  that  female  whales,  female 
elephants,  female  rhinoceroses,  and  female  savages,  should 
all  of  them  have  become  possessed  of  the  desire  to  get  rid 
of  their  hairy  coverings  ;  that  they  should  have  induced 
the  same  desire  in  the  other  sex  ;  and  that,  in  obedience 
to  this  desire,  the  hair  on  the  bodies  of  all  should  have 
become  "small  by  degrees,  and  beautifully  less"  ! 

Darwin.  I  did  not  say,  my  Lord,  that  whales  were  ever 
covered  with  hair. 

Homo.  I  beg  Mr.  Darwin's  pardon,  rny  Lord,  but  I 
supposed  that,  belonging  as  they  do  to  the  mammalia, 
whales  might,  in  former  time?,  have  been  hairy,  like  their 
"bretluen"  of  that  order;  but  I  do  not  insist  on  this 


SECOND  DAY'S  SITTING.  57 

even  though,  as  I  believe,  whales  retain  a  few  bristles  about 
the  mouth. 

Darwin.  Neither  did  I  say,  my  Lord,  that  the  elephant 
and  hippopotamus  "had  become  divested  of  hair  for  orna- 
mental purposes."  I  said,  "It  would  almost  appear  as  if 
they  had  lost  their  hairy  covering  from  exposure  to  heat." 

Homo.  Very  true,  my  Lord,  he  said  so  ;  but  he  seems 
not  quite  sure  about  its  being  true. 

Lord  C.  Neither  is  he  as  to  the  way  in  which  man  ceased 
to  be  hairy.  He  merely  says  he  is  "  inclined  to  believe  " 
it  happened  in  the  way  he  states. 

Homo.  Then,  my  Lord,  it  is  altogether  supposition. 
But,  granting  for  the  moment  that  we  had  such  savage 
maternal  progenitors  as  Mr.  Darwin  catches  an  obscure 
glimpse  of,  in  the  dim  and  far  distant  past,  I  question 
whether  they  would  have  wished  to  lose  their  hairy 
covering.  Ladies  clothe  themselves  with  the  furs  of 
animals  now.  The  skin  of  fine-looking  wild  beasts  is  prized 
by  them  for  its  beauty,  and  used  for  ornamental  purposes. 
There  were  neither  silks,  nor  satins,  nor  coloured  prints 
in  those  primitive  times.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that, 
if  the  matter  had  depended  on  the  savage  ladies  of  those 
days,  the  human  race  would  have  been  hairy  still. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  would  find  it  difficult  to  account 
for  the  beauty  of  the  vegetable  world  on  the  principles  of 
either  Natural  or  Sexual  Selection. 

Homo.  Or  of  both  of  them  combined,  my  Lord. 

Darwin.  Nevertheless,  my  Lord,  "  the  early  progenitors 
of  man  were  no  doubt  once  covered  with  hair,  both  sexes 
having  beards."  (Vol.  i.  p.  20G.) 


58 


THIRD  DAY'S  SITTING. 

Lord  C.  What  is  the  next  point  ? 

Darwin.  "I  am  informed  by  Mr.  Paget,"  my  Lord, 
"  that  persons  belonging  to  the  same  family  often  have  a 
few  hairs  in  their  eyebrows  much  longer  than  the  others, 
BO  that  this  slight  peculiarity  seems  to  be  inherited.  These 
hairs  apparently  represent  the  vibrissae,  which  are  used  as 
organs  of  touch  by  many  of  the  lower  animals."  (Vol.  i. 
p.  25.) 

Lord  C.  That  seems  a  rather  far-fetched  inference,  Mr. 
Darwin.  Some  animals  have  long  hairs  about  the  mouth 
and  face — as,  for  example,  rats  and  cats — which  they  u^e 
as  feelers,  and  which  they  eeitainly  inherit.  Some  men 
have  occasionally  long  hairs  projecting  from  the  eyebrows, 
which  they  do  not  use  as  feelers,  and  which  they  seem  to 
inherit.  We  should,  therefore,  you  argue,  regard  animals 
possessing  these  vibrissas,  as  co- descendants  with  us  from 
some  ancient  progenitor  !  Your  premises  certainly  do  not 
seem  to  conduct  to  your  conclusion. 

Homo.  Perhaps,  my  Lord — as  Mr.  Darwin  remarked  re- 
garding the  power  of  erecting  the  ear — those  persons  who 
have  these  long  hairs  projecting  from  their  eyebrows,  "  by 
often  touching  them,  and  directing  attention  towards  them, 
could  by  repeated  trials  recover  some  power  in  them,"  and 
so  be  able  to  use  them  as  feelers.  This  would  be  a  good 
fact  for  Mr.  Darwin,  if  he  could  find  it  so.  He  would  not 


THIRD   DAY'S  SITTING.  59 

then  have  to  say,  "  these  hairs  apparently  represent  the 
vibrissae."  It  is  clear  he  is  not  quite  certain  on  this 
point. 

Lord  C.  Why,  then,  does  he  put  it  forward  as  evidence  ? 

Homo.  A  drowning  nian,  my  Lord,  will  catch  at  a  straw, 
or  even  at  a  hair,  if  he  can  find  one  to  catch  at. 

Darwin.  "In  a  young  chimpanzee,"  my  Lord,  "I  ob- 
served that  a  few  upright,  rather  long  hairs  projected  above 
the  eyes,  where  the  true  eyebrows,  if  present,  would  have 
scood."  (Vol.  i.  p.  25.) 

Homo.  I  do  not  see,  my  Lord,  that  this  fact  helps  Mr. 
Darwin  in  the  least.  Nor  does  the  farther  fact — on  which, 
however,  he  makes  no  comment — that  man  possesses  eye- 
brows at  all.  He  has  told  us  "  rudimentary  organs  "  are 
"  either  abFolutely  useless,"  or  of  very  "  slight  service  to 
their  present  possessors."  Now,  our  eyebrows,  while  con- 
tributing much  to  the  comeliness  and  beauty  of  the  human 
frame,  are  certainly  of  no  use  to  us  whatever.  We  could 
get  on  very  well  without  them.  How  came  we  then  to 
possess  them  ?  On  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection,  we 
ought  to  have  been  destitute  of  these  hairy  appendages  to 
the  brow. 

Lord  C.  Perhaps  Sexual  Selection  will  account  for  the 
eyebrows. 

Homo.  That  is  very  questionable,  my  Lord.  Some  savage 
tribes  eradicate  their  eyebrows,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin, 
man  was  originally  a  savage. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  the  fine  wool-like  hair,  or  so-called 
lanugo,  with  which  the  human  foetus,  during  the  sixth 
month,  is  thickly  covered,  offers  a  more  curious  case.  It 
is  first  developed  during  the  fifth  month  on  the  eyebrows 
and  face,  and  especially  round  the  mouth,  where  it  is  much 

longer  than  that  on  the  head The  whole  surface, 

E  2 


CO  HOMO   V.  DARWIX. 

including  even  the  forehead  and  ears,  is  thus  thickly  clothed  ; 
but  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  palms  of  the  hands  and 
the  soles  of  the  feet  are  quite  naked,  like  the  inferior 
surfaces  of  all  four  extremities  in  most  of  the  lower  animals. 
As  this  can  hardly  be  an  accidental  coincidence,  we  must 
consider  the  woolly  covering  of  the  foetus  to  be  the  rudi- 
mental  representation  of  the  first  permanent  coat  of  hair 
in  those  mammals  which  are  born  hairy."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  25,  26.) 

Homo.  I  suppose,  my  Lord,  that  the  palms  of  our  hands 
and  the  soles  of  our  feet — like  the  inferior  surfaces  of  all 
four  extremities  in  most  of  the  lower  animals — being  de- 
signed for  walking  or  working,  were  not  intended  to  be 
covered  with  hair,  as,  in  fact,  they  never  are.  But  how 
the  circumstance  of  our  resembling  the  lower  animals  in 
this  respect,  can  prove  the  woolly  covering  of  the  human 
embryo  to  be  the  rudimental  representative  of  the  first 
permanent  hairy  coat  of  the  hairy  mammals,  I  cannot 
comprehend. 

Lord  0.  But  how  do  you  account,  Homo,  for  this  fine 
wool-like  hair,  which  covers  you  before  birth  ? 

Homo.  My  Lord,  why  may  not  man  have  hair  upon  his 
body,  both  as  an  embryo  and  as  an  adult,  without  being 
indebted  for  it  to  the  lower  animals  ?  As  to  accounting 
for  it,  I  shall  be  able  to  do  so  when  Mr.  Darwin  can  account 
FMtisfactorily  for  the  fine  wool-like  hair  which  covers  the 
tender  shoots  of  many  a  giant  tree  when  they  first  spring 
up  from  the  ground. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  it  appears  as  if  the  posterior  molar 
or  wisdom-teeth  were  tending  to  become  rudimentary  in 
the  more  civilized  races  of  man.  These  teeth  are  rather 
smaller  than  the  other  molars,  as  is  likewise  the  case  with 
the  corresponding  teeth  in  the  chimpanzee  and  the  or.: 


THIRD   DAY'S   SITTING.  61 

and  they  have  only  two  separate  fangs.  They  do  not  cut 
through  the  gums  till  about  the  seventeenth  year,  and  I 
am  assured  by  dentists  that  they  are  much  more  liable  to 
decay,  and  are  earlier  lost  than  the  other  teeth.  It  is  also 
remarkable  that  they  are  much  more  liable  to  vary,  both  in 
structure  and  in  the  period  of  their  development,  than  the 
other  teeth.  In  the  Melanian  races,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
•wisdom  teeth  aie  usually  furnished  with  three  separate 
fangs,  and  are  generally  sound  ;  they  also  differ  from  the 
other  molars  in  size  less  than  in  the  Caucasian  races. 
Professor  Schaaffhausen  accounts  for  this  difference  between 
the  races,  by  *  the  posterior  dental  portion  of  the  jaw  being 
always  shortened '  in  those  that  are  civilized ;  and  this 
shortening  may,  I  presume,  be  safely  attributed  to  civilized 
men  habitually  feeding  on  soft,  cooked  food,  and  thus  using 
their  jaws  less.  I  am  informed  by  Mr.  Brace  that  it  is 
becoming  quite  a  common  practice,  in  the  United  States, 
to  remove  some  of  the  molar  teeth  of  children,  as  the  jaw 
does  not  grow  large  enough  for  the  perfect  development  of 
the  normal  number."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  26,  27.) 

Homo.  Admitting,  my  Lord,  the  correctness  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  statement  regarding  our  wisdom-teeth,  I  do  not 
see  that  it  at  all  helps  his  argument.  Our  tetih  may 
resemble  those  of  the  chimpanzee  or  the  orang,  as  the 
result  of  our  having  an  animal  nature  like  theirs,  with- 
out our  being  blood  relations  of  these  animals.  As  for 
the  teeth  and  jaws  of  civilized  man  becoming  somewhat 
-  modified  by  their  "  habitually  feeding  on  soft,  cooked  food," 
what  has  this  to  do,  I  should  like  to  know,  with  our  being 
descended  from  apes  ?  No  one  doubts  that  man's  physical 
structure  is,  to  use  Mr.  Darwin's  own  words,  "eminently 
variable,"  and  that  this  variation  arises,  in  part,  from  causes 
connected  with  our  peculiar  civilization.  Will  Mr.  Darwin 


62  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

undertake  to  prove  that,  if  man  exists  as  the  result  of  a 
separate  act  of  creation,  he  either  cannot  possibly  vary  at 
all,  or  must  vary  in  quite  different  directions  from  those  in 
which  he  does  vary  ?  As  for  the  modification  of  the  jaw 
which  Mr.  Brace  says  is  taking  place  in  the  United  States 
of  America,  it  is  no  doubt  the  result  of  causes  in  the 
peculiar  physical  conditions  of  the  people  of  that  country. 
If  they  had  to  live  on  nuts,  and  crack  them  with  their 
teeth,  the  modification  would  unquestionably  take  another 
direction.  The  fact  is,  my  Lord,  that  Mr.  Darwin  is 
reasoning  here  with  his  imagination,  instead  of  his  intellect, 
for  in  no  other  way  than  by  the  aid  of  that  soaring  faculty 
could  he  reach  his  conclusion  from  such  premises. 

Lord  C.  You  cannot  surely  mean,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  the 
circumstance  of  our  teeth  and  jaws  becoming  somewhat 
modified  through  our  civilization  proves  us  to  be  descended 
from  the  same  stock  with  the  lower  animals — for  that  is 
the  point  you  are  now  endeavouring  to  prove.  Would 
"  the  younger  and  rising  naturalists  "  even  be  satisfied  with 
such  evidence  ? 

Homo.  I  should  think,  my  Lord,  none  of  them  could, 
unless  such  as  have  not  yet  cut  their  wisdom-teeth. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  the  early  male  progenitors  of  man 
were  .  .  .  probably  furnished  with  great  canine  teeth  ;  but 
as  they  gradually  acquired  the  habit  of  using  stones,  clubs, 
or  other  weapons,  for  fighting  with  their  enemies,  they 
would  have  used  their  jaws  and  teeth  less  and  less.  In 
this  case,  the  jaws,  together  with  the  teeth,  would  have 
become  reduced  in  size,  as  we  may  feel  sure  from  innumer- 
able analogous  cases."  (Vol.  i.  p.  144.) 

Homo.  No  doubt,  my  Lord,  if  man  has  had  such  pro- 
genitors as  Mr.  Darwin  imagines,  with  great  canine  teeth 
for  fighting,  their  teeth  and  jaws  would  become  reduced  as 


THIRD   DAY'S   SITTING.  C3 

they  learned  to  fight  after  a  more  rational  manner.  But 
Mr.  Darwin  here  takes  it  for  granted  that,  in  older  times, 
brutes  could  manufacture  "clubs"  and  "other  weapons," 
which  implies,  of  course,  that  they  could  also  manufacture 
tools.  Think  of  wild  beasts  manufacturing  tools,  my 
Lord  !  We  shall  be<  hearing  next  of  manufactories  set  up 
in  the  dens  and  cages  of  the  Zoological  Gardens  ! 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  he  who  rejects  with  scorn  the  belief 
that  the  shape  of  his  own  canines,  and  their  occasional 
great  development  in  other  men,  are  due  to  our  early 
progenitors  having  been  provided  with  these  formidable 
weapons,  will  probably  reveal,  by  sneering,  the  line  of  his 
descent.  For,  though  he  no  longer  intends,  nor  has  the 
power,  to  use  these  teeth  as  weapons,  he  will  unconsciously 
retract  his  '  snarling  muscles,'  (thus  named  by  Sir  Charles 
Bell),  so  as  to  expose  them  ready  for  action,  like  a  dog 
prepared  to  fight."  (Vol.  i.  p.  127.) 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  is  becoming  very  oracular,  my  Lord  ; 
but  it  would  help  his  argument  more  if  he  could  show  any 
rational  ground  on  which  it  might  be  believed  that  the 
canines  of  man,  and  the  tusks  of  the  wild  boar,  or  of  the 
elephant — a  single  one  of  which,  he  tells  us,  "  has  been 
known  to  weigh  180  pounds" — have  been  developed  from 
the  same  common  prototype.  No  intelligent  person  sneers 
when  told  that  the  earth  turns  on  its  axis,  and  travels  with 
almost  inconceivable  rapidity  in  its  orbit  round  the  sun ; 
he  feels  that  there  are  good  grounds  on  which  he  may 
believe  this ;  but  Mr.  Darwin  requires  us  to  believe,  without 
any  evidence  whatever,  that  the  canine  teeth  of  man,  the 
tubks  of  hogs  and  elephants,  and,  I  may  add,  the  horns  of 
stags  and  antelopes — all  of  them  once  lay  concealed  in  the 
head  of  a  tadpole  ! 

Darwin.  "This  tooth,"  my  Lord,  "the  canine,  no  longer 


64  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

serves  man  as  a  special  weapon  for  tearing  his  enemies  or 
prey  ;  it  may,  therefore,  as  far  as  its  proper  function  is 
concerned,  be  considered  as  rudimentary."  (Vol.  i.  p.  126.) 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  has  not  proved,  my  Lord — nor  can 
he  prove — that  the  proper  function  of  this  tooth  in  man  is 
for  "  tearing  his  enemies."  No  one,  I  should  think,  could 
share  this  belief  of  Mr.  Darwin  but  a  semi-savage. 

Darwin.  "  In  every  large  collection  of  human  -skulls," 
my  Lord,  "  some  may  be  found,  as  Hackel  observes,  with 
the  canine  teeth  projecting  considerably  beyond  the  others, 
in  the  same  manner,  but  in  a  less  degree,  as  in  the  anthro- 
pomorphous apes.  In  these  cases,  open  spaces  between  the 
teeth  in  the  one  jaw  are  left  for  the  reception  of  the  canines 
belonging  to  the  other  jaw."  (Vol.  i.  p.  126.) 

Homo.  That  shows,  my  Lord,  that  nature  works  after 
an  ideal  plan.  There  is  a  typical  form  which  she  ever  keeps 
in  view. 

Lord  G.  Mr.  Darwin  would,  I  presume,  regard  the  cases 
in  question  as  instances  of  "  reversion  to  some  former  and 
ancient  type  of  structure." 

Homo.  They  are  certainly,  so  far,  cases  of  resemblance,  my 
Lord  ;  but  when  Mr.  Darwin  insists  that  the  projecting 
canines  which  some  few  men  exhibit,  show  reversion  to  a 
former  type,  he  is  taking  for  granted  cur  descent  from  some 
brutal  progenitor.  Now  if,  at  times,  man  were  to  approxi- 
mate unmistakeably  to  the  image  and  likeness  of  the  brute ; 
if  he  were  to  come  into  existence  occasionally  with  "  a  tail 
and  pointed  ears,"  or  with  the  hoofs  of  some  quadruped, 
or  with  feet  like  an  ape's,  there  would  be  some  show  of 
reason  for  this  assumption.  But  there  is  certainly  none  in 
the  circumstance  that,  now  and  then,  a  man  develops  a 
tooth  which  bears  a  remote  resemblance  to  that  of  some 
lower  animal.  The  fact  is,  my  Lord,  that  we  know  far  too 


THIRD   DAY'S   SITTING.  C"> 

Hi  tie  of  the  forces  and  materials  with  which  Nature  works, 
or  of  the  laws  and  manner  of  her  working,  to  be  able  to 
pronounce  any  decision  in  a  case  like  this.  Mr.  Darwin  is 
probably  as  far  wrong  in  his  statements  on  this  point  as  he 
now  acknowledges  he  was  in  what  he  wrote  some  years 
ago  about  t!:e  supernumerary  inammaa  of  females  and  fingers 
of  men. 

Lord  C.  Pray,  what  was  that  ? 

Homo.  Why,  my  Lord,  in  a  former  work  he  "attributed 
the  not  very  rare  cases  of  supernumerary  mammae  in  women 
to  reversion,  from  their  being  generally  placed  Byrametri- 
cally  on  the  breast."  He  now  fiads,  however,  that  they 
"  have  been  known  to  occur  in  other  situations,  even  on  the 
back,"  by  which  fact,  he  says,  "  the  force  of  my  argument 
is  greatly  weakened,  or  perhaps  entirely  destroyed."  (See 
note,  Vol.  i.  p.  125.)  It  sometimes  happens  also  that  persons 
are  born  with  supernumerary  fingers.  If  they  are  cut  off, 
others  will  grow  in  their  stead.  This  also  he  attributed  to 
"  reversion."  Unable,  however,  to  find  that  there  was  any 
ancient  form  to  which  such  reversion  was  possible,  and 
finding  "  the  highest  authority  in  Europe  on  such  a  point " 
against  him,  he  very  candidly,  though  reluctantly,  acknow- 
ledges himself  to  have  been  in  error  also  on  this  point. 
"  This  extraordinary  fact  of  their  re-growth,"  he  says, 
"  remains  inexplicable,  if  the  belief  in  reversion  to  some 
extremely  remote  progenitor  must  be  rejected."  (See  cote, 
Vol.  i.  p.  126.)  But  why  should  he  not  suppose,  my  Lord, 
that  "  some  extremely  remote  progenitor  "  occasionally  had 
supernumerary  digits  ?  No  authority  could  forbid  him  the 
consolation  of  such  a  belief. 

Lord  C.  Very  true  ;  but  -it  would  not  help  his  argument. 
Let  us  hear,  however,  what  Mr.  Darwin  has  to  say  on  other 
points. 


66  HOMO   r.    1URWIN. 

Darwin.  "  Considering,"  my  Lord.  "  how  few  ancient 
skulls  have  been  examined  in  comparison  with  recent 
skulls,  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  in  at  least  three  cases, 
the  canines  project  largely,  and  in  the  Naulette  skull  they 
are  spoken  of  as  enormous."  (Vol.  i.  p.  126.) 

Homo.  I  do  not  see,  my  Lord,  that  these  cases  help  Mr. 
Darwin  in  the  least.  He  is  now  taking  it  for  granted  that 
man  was  originally  a  savage.  That  I  do  not  believe.  I 
regard  savages  as  having  originated,  if  not  in  all  cases, 
certainly  in  most,  from  some  portion  of  our  race  having 
drained  away,  by  its  own  inherent  tendencies,  from  a  higher 
and  more  genial  life,  to  the  low,  wretched,  death-like  level 
at  which  we  find  it.  If  Mr.  Darwin,  therefore,  could  pro- 
duce three  hundred  such  skulls,  instead  of  three,  the  larger 
development  of  their  canines  might  be  referred  with  far 
greater  probability  to  degradation  than  to  reversion. 

Darwin.  "  To  believe,"  my  Lord,  "  that  man  was  abori- 
ginally civilized,  and  then  suffered  utter  degradation  in  so 
many  regions,  is  to  take  a  pitiably  low  view  of  human 
nature."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  184,  185.) 

Homo.  It  is,  nevertheless,  a  correct  view.  We  see,  un- 
happily, too  much  around  us  to  prove  its  correctness.  Are 
there  not  many,  in  all  our  great  cities,  that  exhibit  a 
tendency  to  sink  into  utter  barbarism.  Let  them  but  be 
transported  to  some  uninhabited  island,  or  to  some 
desert,  and  there  left  to  themselves,  and,  in  a  very  few 
generations,  every  trace  of  what  civilization  they  have 
would  disappear. 

Darwin.  "  In  the  Quadrumana,"  my  Lord,  "  and  some 
other  orders  of  animals,  especially  in  the  Carnivora,  there  is 
a  passage  near  the  lower  end  of  the  humerus  called  the 
eupra-condyloid  foramen,  through  which  the  great  nerve  of 
the  fore-limb  passes,  and  often  the  great  artery.  Xow,  in 


THIRD   DAY'S  SITTING.  G7 

the  humerns  of  man,  as  Dr.  Struthers  and  others  have 
shown,  there  is  generally  a  trace  of  this  passage,  and  it  is 
sometimes  fairly  well  developed,  being  formed  by  a  de- 
pending hook-like  process  of  bone,  completed  by  a  band  of 
ligament.  When  present,  the  great  nerve  invariably  passes 
through  it,  and  this  clearly  indicates  that  it  is  the  homo- 
logne  and  rudiment  of  the  supra-condyloid  foramen  of  the 
lower  animals.  Professor  Turner  estimates,  as  he  informs 
me,  that  it  occurs  in  about  one  per  cent,  of  recent 
skeletons  ;  but  during  ancient  times  it  appears  to  have 
been  much  more  common.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  ancient  races, 
in  this  and  several  other  cases,  more  frequently  present 
structures  which  resemble  those  of  the  lower  animals,  than 
do  the  modern  races,  is  interesting.  One  chief  cause  seems 
to  be  that  ancient  races  stand  somewhat  nearer  than 
modern  races  in  the  long  line  of  descent  to  their  remote 
animal-like  progenitors."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  28,  29.) 

Homo.  T/ie  Quarterly  Revieiv,  for  July,  says,  my  Lord, 
that  Mr.  Darwin  "mistakes  the  supra-condyloid  foramen 
of  the  humerus  for  the  inter-condyloid  perforation.  Did 
the  former  condition  frequently  occur  in  man — as,  through 
this  mistake,  Mr.  Darwin  asserts — it  would  be  remarkable 
indeed,  as  it  is  only  found  in  the  lower  monkeys,  and  not 
in  the  higher."  (P.  64.)  I  leave  Mr.  Darwin  then,  to 
settle  the  account  on  this  matter  with  The  Quarterly. 

Darwin.  "  The  os  coccyx  in  man,"  my  Lord,  "  though 
functionless  as  a  tail,  plainly  represents  this  part  in  other 
vertebrate  animals.  At  an  early  embryonic  period  it  is 
free,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  projects  beyond  the  lower 
extremities.  In  certain  rare  and  anomalous  cases,  it  has 
been  known,  according  to  Isidore  Geoffrey  Sfc.-Hilaire,  and 
other?,  to  form  a  small  external  rudiment  of  a  tail.  (Vol. 
i.  p.  29.) 


68  HOMO    V.   DARWIN. 

Homo.  I  should  like,  my  Lord,  to  see  the  man  with  a 
tail.  It  is  singular  enough,  if  such  a  creature  ever  existed, 
that  anatomies  have  not  possessed  themselves  of  his 
skeleton.  We  may  be  sure  that,  if  one  existed  now, 
Barnum  would  have  got  hold  of  him  long  ago.  Why,  it 
would  make  the  fortune  of  a  showman  to  be  able  to  exhibit 
a  man  with  a  tail.  Crowds  would  flock  to  see  him. 
He  would  be  regarded  as  a  curiosity  even  among 
savages. 

Lord  0.  I  fear  it  will  not  be  easy  to  produce  such  a 
specimen  of  humanity.  The  friends  of  a  Homo  cautlalus 
would  be  very  likely  to  remove  the  appendage,  unless, 
indeed,  they  meant  to  make  capital  out  of  the  thing.  I 
think,  therefore,  Mr.  Darwin,  you  must  produce  either  the 
commodity  itself  alive,  or  tangible  evidence  of  its  existence, 
ere  we  can  accept  the  statement  of  the  French  gentleman 
you  refer  to. 

Homo.  I  believe,  my  Lord,  Voltaire  once  said  that  a 
Frenchman  is  a  cross-breed  between  a  tiger  and  a  monkey. 

Lord  C.  Meaning  thereby,  I  presume,  that  the  average 
Frenchman  is  too  often,  in  character,  a  compound  of 
frivolity  and  ferocity.  But  Mr.  Darwin  states  that,  "at  an 
early  embryonic  period,  the  os  coccyx  projects  beyond  the 
lower  extremities." 

Homo.  I  presume,  my  Lord,  that  is  because  the  parts 
that  eventually  surround  it  are  not,  at  the  early  period 
referred  to,  sufficiently  developed. 

Darwin.  "The  os  coccjx,"  my  Lord,  "is  short,  usually  in- 
cluding only  four  vertebrae ;  and  these  are  in  a  rudimental 
condition,  for  they  consist,  with  the  exception  of  the  basal 
one,  of  the  centrum  alone.  They  are  furnished  with  some 
small  muscles  ;  one  of  which,  as  I  am  informed  by  Pro- 
fessor Turner,  has  been  expressly  dcscribrd  by  Theile  as  a 


THIRD   DAY'S   SITTING.  69 

rudimentary  repetition  of  the  extensor  of  the  tail,  which  is 
so  largely  developed  in  many  mammals."  (Vol.  i.  p.  2i).) 

Homo.  The  muscles  to  which  Mr.  Darwin  now  refers,  my 
Lord,  have  long  been  well  known  to  anatomists.  If  what 
Theile  says  of  one  of  them  be  true,  the  fact  could  not 
have  escaped  the  notice  of  "  the  older  and  honoured  chiefs 
in  natural  science."  I  place  their  judgment  against  that 
of  Theile.  As  to  the  os  coccyx  being  short,  having  only 
four  vertebrae,  and  consisting,  with  the  exception  of  the 
basal  one,  of  the  centrum  alone,  this  may  be  quite  true,  but 
how  does  it  prove  us  to  be  descended  from  apes  ?  Without 
Mr.  Darwin's  lively  imagination,  it  is  impossible  to  reach 
his  conclusions. 

Darwin.  "The  following  fact,"  my  Lord,  "for  which 
I  am  also  indebted  to  Professor  Turner,  shows  how  close*ly 
the  os  coccyx  corresponds  with  the  true  tail  in  the  lower 
animals.  Luschka  has  recently  discovered,  at  the  extremity 
of  the  coccygeal  bones,  a  very  peculiar  convoluted  body, 
which  is  continuous  with  the  middle  sacral  artery  ;  and  this 
discovery  led  Krauss  and  Meyer  to  examine  the  tail  of  a 
monkey  (Macacus),  and  of  a  cat,  in  both  of  which  they 
found,  though  not  at  the  extremity,  a  similarly  convoluted 
body.  (Vol.  i.  p.  30.) 

Homo.  This,  my  Lord,  is  surely  very  illogical  reasoning. 
At  the  extremity  of  the  coccygeal  bones  a  very  peculiar 
convoluted  body  is  found.  A  similar  convoluted  body  is 
found  in  the  tail  of  a  monkey,  and  of  a  cat,  though  not  at 
the  extremity.  Therefore  man  is  descended  from  the  same 
progenitors  as  the  monkey  and  the  cat !  This  reasoning  is 
about  as  conclusive  as  the  specimen  we  had  a  little  while 
ago.  Some  persons  belonging  to  the  same  family  have  a 
few  long  hairs  in  their  eyebrows,  which  they  don't  use  as 
feelers.  Cats  and  rats  have  long  hairs  on  their  upper  lips 


70  HOMO  V.   DA11WIX. 

and  faces,  which  they  do  use  as  feelers.  Man,  therefore,  is 
descended  from  the  same  primal  stock  as  cats  and  rats  !  In 
spite,  moreover,  of  all  that  Mr.  Darwin  has  said,  it  is  a  fact 
that  the  os  coccyx  in  man  is  never  a  tail ;  it  has  no  joints; 
nor  has  it  muscles  that  can  move  it,  as  a  tail  must  have. 

Danvin.  "  According  to  a  popular  impression,"  my  Lord, 
"  the  absence  of  a  tail  is  eminently  distinctive  of  man  ;  but 
as  those  apes  that  come  nearest  to  man  are  destitute  of  this 
organ,  its  disappearance  does  not  especially  concern  us. 
Nevertheless,  it  may  be  well  to  own  that  no  explanation,  as 
far  as  I  am  aware,  has  ever  been  given  of  the  loss  of  the 
tail  by  certain  apes  and  man."  (Vol.  i.  p.  150.) 

Lord  C.  That  is  a  very  candid  admission. 

Darwin.  "  Its  loss,  however,  is  not  surprising,"  my  Lord, 
"for  it  sometimes  differs  remarkably  in  length  in  species  of 
the  same  genera.  Thus,  in  some  species  of  Macacus  the  tail 
is  longer  than  the  whole  body,  consisting  of  twenty-four 
vertebrae  ;  in  others  it  consists  of  a  scarcely  visible  stump, 
containing  only  three  or  four  vertebrae.  .  .  .  This  great 
diversity  in  the  structure  and  length  of  the  tail  in  animals 
belonging  to  the  same  genera,  and  following  nearly  the 
same  habits  of  life,  renders  it  probable  that  the  tail  is  not 
of  much  importance  to  them  ;  and  if  so,  we  might  have 
expected  that  it  would  sometimes  have  become  more  or  less 
rudimentary,  in  accordance  with  what  we  incessantly  see 
with  other  structures."  (Vol.  i.  p.  150.) 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  is  again  reasoning  on 
hypotheses.  The  length  of  the  tail,  he  tells  us,  differs  in 
enimals  belonging,  not  to  the  same  species,  but  to  the  same 
genera,  therefore  it  is  "})robable"  that  the  tail  is  not  of 
much  importance  to  them  ;  "  if  s0,"  we  might  expect  it  to 
become  more  or  less  rudimentary.  This  hypothetical 
reasoning,  my  Lord,  is  very  unsatisfactory. 


THIRD   DAY'S  SITTING.  71 

Lord  C.  True  science,  certainly,  cannot  be  built  upon 
suppositions. 

Homo.  Moreover,  my  Lord,  he  is  accusing  the  god  he 
believes  to  have  built  up  the  world  around  us — I  mean 
Natural  Selection — of  the  folly  either  of  having  given  a  tail 
where  it  was  unnecessary,  or  of  having  withheld  it  where  it 
should  have  been  present.  In  short,  he  finds  that  Natural 
Selection,  in  giving  a  tail  to  one  species  of  monkey,  and 
withholding  it  from  another  similar  species,  has  not  acted 
consistently,  nor  in  a  way  that  suits  his  argument.  I  think 
I  could  suggest  to  Mr.  Darwin  a  way  in  which  he  might 
account,  consistently  with  his  own  principles,  for  the  loss  of 
the  tail  by  man.  He  must  surely,  when  writing  on  this 
point,  have  forgotten  a  fact  regarding  the  larvas  of  Ascidians 
— those  representatives  of  our  "  most  ancient  progenitors." 
He  knows  very  well  that  these  larvas  cast  off  their  tails 
when  they  become  sessile.  Why  may  not  man  have  done 
the  same  when  he  emerged  into  humanity  from  the  last  of 
his  ape-like  progenitors,  and  thus  became,  if  not  so  sessile 
as  the  Ascidian,  at  least  more  so  than  the  ape  ?  The  loss 
of  the  tail  by  man  might  thus  be  attributed  to  "reversion 
to  a  former  and  ancient  type  of  structure." 

Lord  C.  That  would  be  an  approach  to  Lord  Monboddo's 
idea,  namely,  "  that  man  rubbed  off  his  tail  by  sitting 
on  it." 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "  the  occurrence  of  such  rudiments  " 
in  man,  "  is  difficult  to  explain  on  the  belief  of  the  separate 
creation  of  each  species."  (Vol.  i.  p.  30.) 

Homo.  I  beg  to  say,  my  Lord,  that  those  points  of 
similarity  in  bodily  structure  between  man  and  the  lower 
animals,  which  Mr.  Darwin  calls  "rudiments,"  are  suffi- 
ciently accounted  for,  if  we  regard  the  Creator  as  modelling 
his  creatures  after  the  same  ideal  plan,  and  bear  in  mind 


72  HOMO   V.    DARWIN. 

that  "  man  is  subject  to  much  variability,"  and  that  "  no 
two  individuals  of  the  same  race  are  quite  alike." 

Darwin.  "'On  any  other  view,"  my  Lord,  "  than  their 
descent  from  a  common  progenitor,  together  with  their 
subsequent  adaptation  to  diversified  conditions,  the  simi- 
larity of  pattern  between  the  hand  of  a  man  or  monkey, 
the  foot  of  a  horse,  the  flipper  of  a  seal,  the  wing  of  a  bat, 
&c.,  is  utterly  inexplicable.  It  is  no  scientific  explanation 
to  assert  that  they  Lave  all  been  formed  on  the  same  ideal 
plan."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  31,  32.) 

Homo.  Allow  me,  my  Lord,  to  reply  to  Mr.  Darwin  here, 
in  the  language  of  his  reviewer  in  The  Times.  When  Mr. 
Darwin  says,  "  It  is  no  scientific  explanation  to  assert  that 
they  have  all  been  formed  on  the  same  ideal  plan,"  "  he  is 
simply  begging  the  question.  If  Mr.  Darwin  starts  with 
the  preliminary  assumption  that  every  fact  in  nature  is 
capable  of  scientific  explanation — in  other  words,  that  no 
causes  have  ever  operated  except  natural  causes,  he  will,  of 
course,  reject  any  other  causes.  But  this  assumption  is  the 
very  thing  to  be  proved.  To  argue  from  it  is  to  assume 
the  whole  doctrine  of  evolution.  The  assertion  in  question 
is  scientific  or  not,  according  as  it  is  true  or  not.  The  only 
scientific  question  is  whether,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  species 
have  been  developed,  by  force  of  circumstances,  out  of  other 
species,  and  man  out  of  an  ape.  It  is  certainly  unscientific 
argument  to  assume  that  they  must  have  been  so  developed. 
Does  the  investigation  of  the  various  forms  of  Nature  lead 
us  up  to  a  number  of  distinct  points  of  departure  ?  This 
is  the  question  at  issue.  Mr.  Darwin,  unless  he  believes 
the  world  to  be  eternal,  must  admit  a  single  point  of  de- 
parture, and  there  is  nothing  more  essentially  unscientific 
in  the  recognition  of  a  dozen  co-ordinate  points  of  departure 
than  in  the  recognition  of  one." 


THIRD   DAY'S  SITTING.  73 

Lord  C.  Do  you  think,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  science  alone 
will  account  for  the  existence  of  man  ?  Has  a  Creator 
never  intervened  ? 

Darwin.  I  do  not  assert,  my  Lord,  that  a  Creator  has 
never  intervened. 

Homo.  In  his  work  on  "The  Origin  of  Species,"  my  Lord, 
Mr.  Darwin  says,  "  There  is  a  grandeur  in  this  view  of  life, 
with  its  several  powers,  having  been  originally  breathed  by 
the  Creator  into  a  few  forms  or  into  one."  I  do  not  find, 
in  his  present  work,  any  such  acknowledgment  of  the  in- 
tervention of  a  Creator.  He  says,  "  the  idea  of  a  universal 
and  beneficent  Creator  of  the  universe  does  not  seem  to 
arise  in  the  mind  of  man,  until  he  has  been  elevated  by 
long-continued  culture."  (Vol.  ii.,  p.  395.)  But  whether  or 
not  he  now  regards  this  idea  of  a  Creator  as  a  correct  one, 
does  not  appear. 

Lord  C.  It  will  be  but  just  to  Mr.  Darwin  to  regard  him 
as  retaining  Ms  formerly  avowed  belief  in  a  Creator,  until 
he  expressly  repudiates  it 

Homo.  I  quite  agree  with  your  Lordship,  and  have  certainly 
n ->t  the  least  desire  to  do  injustice  to  Mr.  Darwin.  I  cannot 
understand,  however,  why,  in  his  present  work,  which  seems 
as  much  as  his  former  one  to  lead  to  the  subject,  he  does 
not  afain  indicate  his  belief  in  the  intervention  of  the 
Creator.  I  suppose  he  feels  that  the  weak  point  of  his 
argument  is  ju.-t  here.  For,  if  he  admits  that  the 
Creator  must  have  breathed  life  "into  a  few  forms,"  why 
may  not  man  have  been  one  of  these  forms  ?  I  might, 
besides,  ask  Mr.  Darwin  if  it  be  a  "scientific  explana- 
tion" to  assert  that  the  Creator  has  breathed  life  into 
any  form  whatever?  Mr.  Darwin  himself  falls  away 
from  "scientific  explanation"  when  he  brings  in  the 
Creator. 


74:  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

Lord  C.  I  quite  think  so,  though  I  am  glad  to  find  Mr. 
Darwin's  system  recognizes  the  Creator. 

Darwin.  "  With  respect  to  development,"  my  Lord,  "  we 
can  clearly  understand,  on  the  principle  of  variations  super- 
vening at  a  rather  late  embryonic  period,  and  being  in- 
herited at  a  corresponding  period,  how  it  is  that  the  embryos 
of  wonderfully  different  forms  should  still  retain,  more  or 
less  perfectly,  the  structure  of  their  common  progenitor." 
(Vol.  i.  p.  32.) 

Lord  C.  You  speak  of  "  variations  supervening  at  a  rather 
late  embryonic  period,  and  being  inherited  at  a  corresponding 
period,"  but  what  proof  have  you  that  such  variations  ever 
either  supervened  or  were  inherited  ?  Are  you  not  here  in- 
troducing a  new  hypothesis  to  sustain  your  old  one  ? 

Danvin.  "No  other  explanation,"  my  Lord,  "has  ever 
been  given  of  the  marvellous  fact  that  the  embryos  of  man, 
dog,  seal,  reptile,  &c.,  can  at  first  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  each  other."  (Vol.  i.  p.  32.) 

Homo.  My  Lord,  why  should  Mr.  Darwin  make  anything 
of  this  "  marvellous  fact,"  when  it  results  from  another  yet 
more  marvellous  fact,  which  he  would  have  us  accept,  viz., 
that  the  germ  from  which  man  is  developed  "  differs  in  no 
respect  from  the  germs  of  other  animals."  If  the  germs 
"  differ  in  no  respect,"  this  would  lead  us,  d  priori,  to 
expect  that  the  embryos  proceeding  from  those  germs, 
instead  of  being  hardly  distinguishable  from  each  other, 
would  not  be  distinguished  from  each  other  at  all.  But 
this  is  only  another  of  the  reckless  statements  put  forth  by 
Mr.  Darwin.  Your  Lordship  has  seen  in  the  drawing  he 
has  supplied  to  us,  that  the  embryos  of  man  and  dog,  at  an 
"early  stage  of  development,"  present  differences  which 
might  be  pointed  out  by  a  child.  Besides  this,  the  ten- 


THIRD   DAY'S   SITTING.  75 

dencics  in  each  germ  are  towards  the  development  of  the 
ultimate  form,  whatever  that  form  may  be.  A  dog-germ 
will  become  a  dog,  a  bat-germ  a  bat,  a  seal-germ  a  seal,  a 
reptile -germ  a  reptile,  and  a  human-germ  a  man,  in  spite 
of  Mr.  Darwin  and  the  rising  naturalists.  They  might  as 
well  attempt  to  pluck  the  sun  from  the  heavens  as  to 
change  this  order  of  things. 

Darwin.  "In  order,"  my  Lord,  "to  understand  the 
existence  of  rudimentary  organs,  we  have  only  to  suppose 
that  a  former  progepitor  possessed  the  parts  in  question  in 
a  perfect  state,  and  that,  under  changed  habits  of  life,  they 
became  greatly  reduced,  either  from  simple  disuse,  or 
through  the  Natural  Selection  of  those  individuals  which 

O 

were  least  encumbered  with  a  superfluous  part,  aided  by 
the  other  means  previously  indicated."  (Vol.  i.  p.  32.) 

Lord  C.  That  is  just  the  difficulty,  Mr.  Darwin.  If  we 
suppose  a  former  progenitor  of  man,  we  suppose  your 
hypothesis  to  be  true,  and  thus  make  it  prove  itself.  "We 
take  for  granted  the  poiut  in  dispute,  in  order  to  prove  the 
point  in  dispute.  This  is  mere  reasoning  in  a  circle.  We 
cannot  suppose  a  former  progenitor  until  you  prove  this 
former  progenitor  to  have  really  existed. 

Darwin.  "  Thus  we  can  understand,"  my  Lord,  "how  it 
has  come  to  pass  that  man,  and  all  other  vertebrate 
animals,  have  been  constructed  on  the  same  general  model, 
why  they  pass  through  the  same  early  stages  of  develop- 
ment, and  why  they  retain  certain  rudiments  in  common. 
Consequently,  we  ought  fran1: ly  to  admit  their  community 
of  descent :  to  take  any  other  view  is  to  admit  that  our 
own  structure,  and  that  of  all  the  animals  around  us,  is  a 
mere  snare  laid  to  entrap  our  judgment."  (Vol.  i.  p.  32.) 

Homo.  I  have  read,  my  Lord,  in  an  old  book,  about  the 
"  wise  being  taken  in  their  own  craftiness."  If  there  be  a 

F  2 


76  HOilO   V.   DARWIX. 

snare  in  connection  wi:h  this  matter,  it  has  been  laid  by  Mr 
Darwin's  own  hand.  He  has  allowed  himself  to  become  so 
enamoured  of  the  venerable  pair  of  hairy  quadrupeds,  with 
tails  and  pointed  ears,  from  whom  he  thinks  himself  de- 
scended, that  he  skips  over  mountains  more  impassable 
than  the  Himalayas,  and  flies  on  the  wings  of  imagination 
across  separating  and  unfathomable  abysses,  that  he  may 
embrace  them. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  is  more  probably  carried  away  by 
fondness  for  his  hypothesis.  He  would  like  to  find  that  all 
animated  existence  has  been  developed  from  some  prirm.l 
form,  and  that  there  is  thus  a  grand  unity  in  nature.  Now, 
there  is  doubtless  unity  in  natuie,  but  it  is  worthy  of  con- 
sideration whether  it  does  not  lie  deeper  than  Mr.  Darwin 
seeks  it ;—  not  in  all  kinds  of  creatures  having  been  de- 
veloped from  one  primal  form,  but  in  all  of  them  having 
derived  existence  from  one  common  source,  that  is,  from 
God  Himself.  An  over-anxious  desire  to  find  unity  else- 
where than  in  the  Creator,  may  become  a  source  of  error. 
One  may  thus  be  led  to  imagine  there  is  unity  where  there 
is  none,  and  to  seek  it  \\here  it  cannot  be  found.  I  shall 
be  glad  to  hear,  at  our  next  sitting,  what  Mr.  Darwin  lias 
to  say  as  to  the  way  in  which  man,  or  rather  the  progenitors 
of  man,  became  erect.  How  did  the  ape-like  creature  ac- 
quire a  human-like  posture  ? 


77 


FOURTH  DAY'S  SITTING. 

Darwin.  "  As  soon,"  my  Lord,  "  as  some  ancient  member 
in  the  great  scries  of  the  Primates  came,  owing  to  a  change 
in  its  manner  of  procuring  subsistence,  or  in  the  conditions 
of  its  native  country,  to  live  somewhat  less  on  trees  and 
more  on  the  ground,  its  manner  of  progression  would  have 
been  modified  ;  and,  in  this  case,  it  would  have  had  to 
become  either  more  strictly  quad,  upedal  or  bipedal."  (Vol. 
i.  pp.  140,  141.) 

Homo.  My  Lord,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis, 
after  four-footed  beasts  had  been  developed  from  the  primi- 
tive worm,  a  portion  of  them  were  changed  by  Natural 
Selection  into  four-handed  animals,  able  to  climb  and  live 
on  trees.  One  would  think  that  the  monkeys  must  have 
been  vain  of  their  elevation.  But  Mr.  Darwin  now  supposes 
them  brought  down  from  it,  and  changed  into  four-footed 
beasts  again  ! 

Lord  C.  Or  into  men  ;  rather,  perhaps,  into  man's  pro- 
genitors. His  words  were,  "  quadrupedal  or  bipedal." 

Homo.  True,  my  Lord,  and,  at  present,  men  only  are 
bipedal.  Still,  the  changing  of  two  of  the  creature's  paws 
from  hand-feet  into  feet  pure  and  simple,  must  have  been 
a  loss  to  which  it  would  very  reluctantly  submit.  One 
•would  think  that,  while  the  change  was  going  on,  it  must 
have  looked  with  regretful  eyes  to  the  trees  and  their 
tempting  fruit,  as  it  found  itself  becoming  unable  to  cliinb 
them. 


78  HOMO  V.    DARWIN . 

Lord  0.  You  forget,  Homo,  that  Mr.  Darwin  spoke  of 
"  a  series  of  forms  graduating  insmsilly  from  some  ape-like 
creature  to  man  as  he  now  exists." 

Homo.  My  Lord,  I  cannot  understand  this  "graduating 
insensibly  "  from  ape  to  man.  Let  us  look  at  it  in  con- 
nection with  the  point  now  before  us.  Here  is  an  "  ape-like 
creature  with  tail  and  pointed  ears,"  and  "  arboreal  in  its 
habits,"  for  it  lives  on  trees.  The  four  paws  which  its  pro- 
genitors had  as  quadrupeds,  for  carrying  them  along  the 
ground,  have  become  changed  in  to  a  kind  of  hands  with  which 
it  can  clutch  trunks  and  branches,  and  make  its  way  from 
tree  to  tree  with  beautiful  agility.  Its  tail  also  has  probably, 
as  in  the  case  of  many  kinds  of  monkeys,  became  modified 
for  twisting  and  grasping.  Sometimes  it  may  use  its  tail 
for  balancing  itself;  sometimes,  with  easy  grace,  it  may 
coil  it  round  a  branch  to  aid  its  security  or  assist  its  pro- 
gress ;  possibly  even,  the  extremity  of  its  tail,  like  that  of 
the  spider-monkey,  may  have  acquired  a  sensitiveness 
similar  to  that  of  the  human  finger,  so  that  it  may  be  thrust 
into  holes  in  its  forest  haunts,  in  search  of  the  eggs  of  birds 
to  give  an  additional  relish  to  its  fruity  meal.  Such  a 
creature  must  have  been  happy  enough  in  its  way.  It  was 
suited  for  its  habitat,  and  its  habitat  was  suited  for  it.  The 
one  answered  perfectly,  admirably,  to  the  other.  Can  it  be 
believed,  then,  that  Natural  Selection  would  have  induced 
a  change  in  this  creature,  which  should  have  gone  on 
sensibly,  or  "  insensibly,"  through  successive  generations  of 
its  descendants,  till  they  had  become  unfitted  for  their 
forest  life,  and  had  forsaken  the  trees  for  the  ground,  and 
their  juicy  fruits  for  such  scanty  roots  as  they  might  be 
able  to  grub  up  from  the  soil  ? 

Lord  C.  You  must  remember,  Homo,  that  Mr.  Darwin 
supposes  its  living  "less  on  trees  and  more  on  the  ground," 


79 

to  have  arisen  from  "  a  change  in  its  manner  of  procuring 
subsistence,  or  in  the  conditions  of  its  native  country." 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  has  a  remarkable  capacity  for  making 
suppositions,  my  Lord,  but  his  present  supposition  is 
neither  ingenuous  nor  ingenious.  It  is  not  ingenuous,  for 
it  is  manifestly  made  for  the  purpose  of  helping  him  out  of 
a  difficulty,  the  existence  of  which  he  had  better  have 
frankly  acknowledged.  And  it  is  not  ingenious.  I  could 
myself  have  easily  helped  him  to  a  better.  Your  Lordship 
will  at  once  perceive  that  a  change  in  the  mode  of  this 
creature's  procuring  subsistence  must  have  arisen  from  a 
change  in  the  conditions  of  its  native  country.  Now 
Africa,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin,  was  the  native  country 
of  man's  progenitors.  But  we  know  that  no  change  of  the 
kind  supposed  has  taken  place  in  Africa,  for  the  forests  of 
that  country  abound  in  monkeys  to  the  present  day. 

Lord  C.  But  may  there  not  have  been  an  era  during 
which  Africa  ceased  to  grow  forests  ? 

Homo.  There  cannot  have  been  such  an  era,  my  Lord, 
else,  on  Mr.  Darwin's  principles,  all  its  monkey  tribes  must 
either  have  perished,  or  been  changed  either  into  quadru- 
peds or  into  men. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "Baboons  frequent  hilly  and  rocky 
districts,  and  only  from  necessity  climb  up  high  trees  ;  and 
they  have  acquired  almost  the  gait  of  a  dog."  (Vol.  i.  p. 
141.) 

Homo.  It  is  not  with  tailless  baboons  that  we  are  at 
present  concerned,  my  Lord,  but  with  a  tailed  ape,  "arboreal 
in  its  habits."  Will  Mr.  Darwin  kindly  keep  to  the  point  ? 
As  to  baboons  having  "  acquired  almost  the  gait  of  a  dog," 
can  he  prove  that  they  ever  had  any  other  gait  ? 

Darwin.  "  Man,"  my  Lord,  "  could  not  have  attained  his 
present  dominant  posi  ion  in  the  world  without  the  use  of 


80  HOMO  V.   DARWIX. 

his  hands,  which  are  so  admirably  adapted  to  act  in  obedi- 
ence to  his  will.  .  .  .  But  the  hands  and  arms  could  hardly 
have  become  perfect  enough  to  have  manufactured  weapons, 
or  to  have  hurled  stones  and  spears  with  a  true  aim,  so 
long  as  they  were  habitually  used  for  locomotion  and  for 
supporting  the  whole  weight  of  the  body,  or  as  long  as  they 
were  especially  well  adapted  ....  for  climbing  trees." 
(Vol.  i.  p.  141.) 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  cannot  rise  above  the 
idea  of  man  having  been  originally  a  savage,  perpetually 
manufacturing  weapons,  and  hurling  stones  and  spears 
against  his  enemies.  If  this  was  the  condition  of  his  pro- 
genitors, and  they  had  enemies  against  whom  they  required 
defence,  one  would  suppose  that  Natural  Selection  would 
have  led  them  to  seek  it  in  the  trees  on  which  they  had  been 
wont  to  make  their  habitation,  and  that  so  they  would  not 
have  lost  their  power  of  climbing.  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis 
is  thus  inconsistent  and  self-contradictory.  Listen  to  it, 
my  Lord.  Man's  progenitors  were  apes,  and  lived  on  trees. 
They  found  sustenance  in  their  fruits,  and  security  on  their 
lofty  branches,  moving  easily  from  one  to  another  as  they 
were  inclined.  In  process  of  time,  however,  they  gradually 
lost  their  power  of  climbing,  and  had  to  "  live  less  on  trees 
and  more  on  the  ground."  They  thus  became  exposed  to 
the  attacks  of  beasts  of  prey,  yet,  strange  to  s*y,  the  suc- 
cessive generations  of  them  were  preserved  through  many 
long  eras  of  our  earth's  history,  as  they  "gradually  and 
insensibly  "  advanced  in  form  towards  man.  Natural  Selec- 
tion thus  put  the  heads  of  these  poor  beasts  into  the  lion's 
mouth,  and  yet  was  able,  somehow,  to  prevent  the  lion  from 
biting  them  oil' ! 

Lord  C.  There  might  have  been  no  lions  in  those 
im;i:nii;iry  times. 


FOURTH   DAY'S   SITTING.  81 

Homo.  Possibly,  my  Lord,  but  then  there  would  have 
been  other  kinds  of  brutes,  quite  as  terrible  to  a  poor 
rheumatic  ape,  whose  hind-hands  were  stiffening  into 
human  feet,  and  which  was,  therefore,  unable  to  run  up  a 
tree  for  security. 

Darwin.  "No  country  in  the  world,"  my  Lord,  "abounds 
in  a  greater  degree  with  dangerous  beasts  than  Southern 
Africa.  ...  but  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  they  (the  early 
progenitors  of  man)  mighfc  have  existed,  or  even  flourished, 
if,  whilst  they  gradually  lost  their  brute-like  powers,  such 
as  climbing  trees,  &c.,  they  at  the  same  time  advanced  in 
intellect."  (Vol.  i.  p.  157.) 

Homo.  I  should  say,  my  Lord,  that  it  is  quite  ^con- 
ceivable that  the  ape-like  progenitors  of  man  should  have 
"  lost  their  brute-like  powers,"  especially  that  of  climbing 
trees,  in  so  dangerous  a  country  as  Southern  Africa.  Natural 
Selection  would  have  proved  a  harder  nurse  to  them  than 
she  has  done  even  to  the  gorilla,  had  she  so  treated  them. 
Then,  why  should  she  not — their  circumstances  being  the 
same — have  treateJ  all  the  monkey  tribes  alike  ? 

Darwin.  "  Granting,"  my  Lord,  "  that  the  progenitors 
of  man  were  far  more  helpless  and  defenceless  than  any 
existing  savages,  if  they  had  inhabited  some  warm  con- 
tinent or  large  island,  such  as  Australia  or  New  Guinea,  or 
Borneo  .  .  .  they  would  not  have  been  exposed  to  any 
special  danger."  (Vol.  i.  p.  157.) 

Homo.  How  can  Mr.  Darwin  make  such  a  supposition, 
my  Lord,  when  he  says  elsewhere,  "  the  fact  that  they 
(man's  progenitors)  belonged  to  this  (the  Catarhine)  stock, 
clearly  shows  that  they  inhabited  the  Old  World  ;  but  not 
Australia,  nor  any  oceanic  island,  as  we  may  infer  from  the 
laws  of  geographical  distribution"  ?  (Vol.  i.  p.  199.)  This 
fcee-saw  mode  of  reasoning  might  have  suited 


82  HOMO  r.   DARWIN. 

progenitors  when  they  were  losing  their  brute-like  powers 
and  advancing  in  intellect,  but  it  cannot  be  allowed  now  that 
the  human  and  scientific  era  has  unquestionably  arrived. 
I  have  already,  my  Lord,  mentioned  one  way  in  which,  on 
Mr.  Darwin's  principles,  the  loss  of  the  tail  by  man's  pro- 
genitors might  be  accounted  for.  Allow  me  now  to  mention 
another.  As  they  became  unable  to  climb  and  live  on 
treep,  this  appendage  would  become  increasingly  incon- 
venient to  them.  Sometimes  they  might  be  caught  by  it  in 
the  very  act  of  escaping.  Being  thus  a  useless  and  even  a 
dangerous  article,  it  would  gradually  get  into  a  rudimentary 
condition,  and  might  eventually  drop  away.  Or,  it  might 
have  been  got  rid  of  "through  the  Natural  Selection  of 
those  individuals  who  were  least  encumbered  with  a  super- 
fluous part." 

Darwin.  "  From  these  causes  alone,"  my  Lord,  which 
I  have  just  mentioned,  "it  would  have  been  an  advantage 
to  man  to  become  a  biped." 

Lord  C.  Do  you  think,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  man  was  ever 
anything  else  than  a  biped  ?  You  would  surely  not 
maintain  that  our  suppo  ed  ape-like  progenitors  were  men  ? 

Homo.  Mr.  Dai  win,  my  Lord,  often  gets  a  little  into  the 
fog  on  this  point.  At  page  235  he  says,  "Whether  primeval 
man,  when  he  possessed  very  few  arts  of  the  rudest  kind, 
and  when  his  power  of  language  was  extremely  imperfect, 
would  have  deserved  to  be  called  man,  must  depend  on  the 
definition  which  we  employ."  lie  was  doubtful,  when 
writing  this  passage,  whether  man  should  be  called  "  man," 
even  when  he  had  become  somewhat  endowed  with  speech  ; 
now,  he  unhesitatingly  calls  our  progenitors  "man"  before 
they  had  become  bipeds,  and  were  as  yet  progressing  on  all- 
fours  ! 

Darwin.  I  was  going  to  add,  when  jour  Lordship  inter- 


FOURTH   DAY'S  SITTING.  83 

rupted  me,  that  "  for  many  actions  it  is  almost  necessary 
that  both  arms  and  the  whole  upper  part  of  the  body  "of 
man "  should  be  free  ;  and  he  must,  for  this  end,  stand 
firmly  on  his  feet.  To  gain  this  great  advantage  the  feet 
have  been  rendered  flat,  and  the  great  toe  peculiarly  modified, 
though  this  has  entailed  the  loss  of  the  power  of  prehension. 
...  If  it  be  an  advantage  to  man  to  have  his  hands  and 
arms  free,  and  to  stand  firmly  on  his  feet — of  which  there 
can  be  no  doubt  from  his  pre-eminent  success  in  the  battle 
of  life — then  I  can  see  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have 
been  advantageous  to  the  progenitors  of  man  to  become 
more  and  more  erect  or  bipedal."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  141,  142.) 

Lord  C.  In  reasoning  as  you  do,  Mr.  Darwin,  you  are 
begging  the  question  in  dispute.  TTe  expect  you  to  prove 
that  man  has  had  progenitors  ;  instead  of  doing  so,  you  take 
it  for  granted  !  I  must  say,  moreover,  that  your  account 
of  the  way  in  which  you  suppose  the  ape  to  have  been 
changed  into  man  is  far  from  satisfactory.  It  is,  no  doubt, 
"  an  advantage  to  man  "  to  be  erect  and  bipedal ;  but,  that 
it  should  have  been  an  advantage  to  an  ape-like  creature, 
accustomed  to  live  on  trees  and  find  its  sustenance  on  their 
produce,  to  lose  its  power  of  climbing  them  in  order  to 
attain  the  erect  posture  of  man — this  is,  to  my  mind,  more 
than  doubtful.  As  we  have  already  seen,  and  you  your- 
self admit,  it  would  thus  have  become  exposed  to  the 
attacks  of  enemies  which  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
it  to  resist,  and  quite  as  impossible  for  it  to  escape.  I  think, 
therefore,  you  quite  fail  to  show  the  possibility  of  such  a 
transmutation  of  species  as  you  suppose. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "if  the  gorilla  and  a  few  allied  forms 
had  become  extinct,  it  might  have  been  argued,  with  great 
force  and  apparent  truth,  that  an  animal  could  not  have 
been  gradually  converted  from  a  quadruped  into  a  Liped ; 


84  HOMO   V.  DARWIN. 

as  all  the  animals  in  an  intermediate  condition  would  have 
been  miserably  ill-fitted  for  progression.  But  we  know, 
and  this  is  well  worthy  of  reflection,  that  several  kinds  of 
apes  are  now  actually  in  this  intermediate  condition  ;  and 
no  one  doubts  that  they  are,  on  the  whole,  well  adapted  for 
their  conditions  of  life.  Thus,  the  gorilla  runs  with  a  side- 
long, shambling  g  it,  but  more  commonly  progresses  by 
resting  on  its  bent  arms.  (Vol.  i.  pp.  142,  143). 

Homo.  Here,  my  Lord,  is  an  engraving  of  a  gorilla. 
Though  it  does  not  show  the  brute  as  it  "  progresses,"  it 
gives  a  very  fair  idea  of  its  general  appearance.  Your 
Lordship  is  aware  that  the  gorilla  belongs  to  the  stem  of 
the  Old  World  monkeys  from  which,  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us, 
"  man  proceeded,"  and  is  now  one  of  our  "  nearest  allies." 

Lord  C.  Perhaps  it  may  be  my  moderate  acquaintance 
with  the  science  pf  Natural  History,  but  I  am  unuble  to 
recognize  the  relationship.  Will  Mr.  Darwin  proceed  ? 

Darwin.  "  The  long-armed  apes,"  my  Lord,  occasionally 
use  their  arms  like  crutches,  swinging  their  bodies  forward 
between  them  ;  and  some  kinds  of  Hylobates,  without  having 
been  taught,  can  run  or  walk  upright  with  tolerable  quick- 
ness, yet  they  move  awkwardly  and  much  less  securely  than 
man.  We  see,  in  short,  with  existing  monkeys,  various 
gradations  between  a  form  of  progression  strictly  like  that 
of  a  quadruped,  and  that  of  a  biped  or  man."  (Vol.  i. 
p.  143.) 

Lord  C*  But  is  not  that  just  what  we  might  expect,  Mr. 
Darwin  ?  As  monkeys  are,  in  outward  form,  intermediate 
between  quadrupeds  and  man,  and  are,  moreover,  as  you 
tell  us,  "on  the  whole,  well  adapted  for  their  conditions 
of  life,"  you  surely  do  not  mean  to  maintain  that  they  were 
ever  better  adapted,  or  less  adapted,  for  their  conditions 
of  life,  and  are  actually,  now,  undergoing  a  process  of 


Gur'dla,  note  one  of  our  "nearest  alliet  **/ 


86  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

transformation.  Yet  your  language  sounds  ambiguously. 
If,  however,  you  mean  to  assert,  for  example,  that  the 
gorilla  ever  ran  or  progressed  in  a  way  different  from 
that  in  which  it  "runs"  or  "progresses"  now,  I  must  call 
on  you  to  prove  your  assertion. 

Homo.  A  vain  call  that  would  be,  my  Lord.  Mr.  Darwin 
would  only  furnish  your  Lordship  with  another  curious 
specimen  of  reasoning.  AVhen  Mr.  Darwin  is  reasoning — 
will  your  Lordship  pardon  the  remark  ? — he  reminds  me 
of  those  apes  he  has  been  speaking  of,  which  use  their  long 
arms  like  crutches,  swinging  their  bodies  forward  between 
them.  The  premises  that  Mr.  Darwin  reasons  from  are 
certainly  not  facts,  but  merely  monkey-like  crutches.  He 
plants  them,  however,  as  firmly  as  he  can  on  some  imagin- 
ary basis,  and  then  swings  himself  forward  between 
them,  through  all  the  acknowledged  laws  of  human  science 
and  logic,  to  the  position  he  wishes  to  occupy.  Mr. 
Darwin's  intellectual  movements,  my  Lord,  in  conducting 
the  reasoning  process,  are  far  more  ungainly  than  those 
bodily  movements  of  the  gorilla  which  he  has  just  described. 
Natural  Selection,  my  Lord,  may  have  endowed  Mr.  Darwin 
with  considerable  power  of  imagination,  and  with  a  capacious 
memory  for  the  facts  of  Natural  History,  but  she  has  certainly 
denied  him  the  gift  of  being  able  to  reason  justly,  and  that 
yet  higher  gift — the  true  spirit  of  philosophy — which,  as 
your  Lordship  remarked,  is  just  a  "  sincere  love  of 
truth." 

Lord  C.  Have  you  anything  to  say,  Mr.  Darwin,  re- 
garding the  size  of  the  brain  in  mau  compared  \\ii\\  its 
size  in  the  lower  animals  ? 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "Dr.  J.  Barnard  Davis  lists  proved  by 
many  careful  measurements,  th;it  the  mean  internal  cnpnciiy 
of  the  skull  in  Europeans  is  'J_'-;J  cubic  inches ;  in  Americans, 


FOURTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  87 

87  5  ;  in  Asiatics,  87-1  ;  and  in  Australians  only  8 1 '9 
inches."  (Vol.  i.  p.  146.) 

Lord  G.  That  is  not  the  point  about  which  I  enquire. 
I  ask,  What  is  the  size  of  the  brain  in  man  compared  with 
its  size  in  the  lower  animals — in  the  ape,  for  example  ? 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  gives  no  answer  to  that 
question.  He  merely  mentions  some  trifling  facts  about 
the  size  of  the  brains  and  skulls  of  domestic  rabbits,  and 
tells  us  how  disease  may  modify  the  shape  of  the  skull  in 
man.  But  Mr.  Wallace  mentions,  at  page  338  of  "  Con- 
tributions to  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection,"  that  the 
proportions  are  "  represented  by  the  following  figures — 
anthropoid  apes,  10 ;  savages,  26  ;  civilized  man,  32." 
Mr.  Wallace  remarks  (page  342)  that  man  is  able  to  "  form 
and  use  weapons  and  implements  which  are  beyond  the 
physical  power  of  brutes  ;  but  having  done  this,  he  cer- 
tainly does  not  exhibit  more  mind  in  using  than  do  many 
lower  animals.  What  is  there  in  the  life  of  the  savage  (he 
asks),  but  the  satisfying  of  the  cravings  of  appetite  in  the 
simplest  and  easiest  way  ?  What  thoughts,  ideas,  or 
actions  are  there,  that  raise  him  many  grades  above  the 
elephant  or  the  ape  ?  Yet  he  possesses,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  brain  vastly  superior  to  theirn  in  size  and  complexity  ; 
and  this  brain  gives  him,  in  an  undeveloped  state,  faculties 
which  he  never  requires  to  use." 

Lord  C.  These  are  most  important  considerations. 

Homo.  My  Lord,  a  writer  in  The  Edinburgh  Revieiv  for 
July,  1871,  page  204,  remarks  on  this :  "  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
that  the  brain  of  savage  man  is  far  beyond  his  needs.  How 
can  this  be  accounted  for  by  the  principle  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion, or  by  the  accumulation  of  small  variations  good  for 
the  individual  ?  The  large  size  "  of  the  brain  of  the  savage 
"  cannot  be  traced  to  circumstances  of  life,  because  it  is  quite 


83  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

disproportionate  to  the  actual  requirement ;  and  even  if 
once  originated,  it  ought,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin's  theory, 
to  have  been  lost  by  disuse.  For  if  Natural  Selection 
tends  in  some  instances  to  raise  a  race  of  beings,  it  might 
tend  in  others  to  lower  it.  To  a  savage,  the  organs  and 
instincts  of  an  animal  might  be  more  useful  than  the  latent 
brain  power  of  a  sage." 

Lord  C.  And  yet  the  savage  often  has  the  latent  brain  power 
of  the  sage!  Mr.  Darwin  should  tell  us  how  the  savage  has 
acquired  this  power,  seeing  that  he  could  not  have  inherited 
it  either  from  his  savage  or  from  his  ape-like  progenitors. 

Homo.  It  would  have  been  more  to  the  purpose,  my 
Lord,  for  Mr.  Darwin  to  have  tried  to  reconcile  these  facts 
with  his  hypothesis,  than  for  him  to  have  entertained  us 
with  the  fancy  pictures  he  has  just  been  exhibiting. 

Lord  C.  I  fear  he  would  the  a  have  been  attempting  an 
impossibility. 

Horro.  It  has  been  remarked,  my  Lord,  that  the  title  of 
Mr.  Darwin's  book  is  a  misnomer,  and  that  it  should  have 
been,  not  "The  Descent  of  Man,"  but  "The  Ascent  of 
Man."  I  think  it  should  rather  have  been,  "  The  Evolu- 
tion of  Man  from  a  Tadpole  taken  for  granted,  and  the 
steps  by  which  *  we  may  confidently  believe '  it  came  about." 


89 


FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING. 

Lord  C.  Will  Mr.  Darwin  now  inform  us  what  further 
evidence  he  has  to  offer  in  support  of  his  hypothesis  ? 

Darwin.  Your  Lordship  has  already  heard  the  whole  of 
the  evidence  I  have  to  adduoe  in  support  of  the  views 
which  I  maintain  regarding  the  origin  of  man.  That 
evidence  is  exhausted  in  the  first  two-and-twenty  pages 
of  my  book  !  The  first  chapter  is  entitled,  "  The  evidence 
of  the  descent  of  man  from  some  lower  Jorm"  In  the  second 
and  third  chapters  I  compare  the  mental  powers  of  man  and 
the  lower  animals.  The  fourth  chapter  is  On  the  manner  of 
development  of  man  from  some  lower  form.  The  fifh 
chapter,  On  the,  development  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
families,  during  primeval  and  civilized  times.  The  sixth, 
On  the  affinities  and  genealogy  of  man.  Chapter  seventh  is 
On  the  races  of  man.  I  then  proceed,  in  the  second  part 
of  my  work,  to  the  subject  of  Sexual  Selection;  which 
occupies  the  remainder  of  the  first  volume  and  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  second.  In  this  part  I  speak  mostly  of 
changes  which  I  suppose  sexual  preference  to  have  intro- 
duced into  the  animal  kingdom. 

Lord  C.  It  will  not  be  necessary  for  us  to  hear  you  on 
that  portion  of  your  work,  inasmuch  as  we  have  to  do  only 
with  your  assertions  as  to  man's  descent  from  some  lower 
form. 

Homo.  May  I,  however,*  call  your  Lordship's  attention 
to  the  fact  that,  while  Mr.  Darwin  tries  to  account  for  the 

a 


90  HOMO   V.   DARWIX. 

many  forms  of  beauty  that  meet  the  eye  among  living 
creatures  around  us,  by  what  he  calls  Sexual  Selection,  he 
leaves  unaccounted  for  the  fact  that  we  find  quite  as  many 
and  as  wonderful  forms  of  beauty  in  the  floral  world,  where 
Sexual  Selection  can  have  no  play.  For  I  suppose  that 
flowers,  in  producing  their  kind,  exercise  no  preference  as 
to  their  partners. 

Lard  C.  From  which  I  suppose  you  infer  that,  while 
Sexual  Selection  may  have  something  to  do  in  modifying 
the  creatures  among  whom  it  comes  into  play,  Mr.  Darfrin 
makes  too  much  of  it,  and  attributes  to  it  a  power  which  it 
does  not  possess. 

Homo.  That  is  precisely  what  I  think,  my  Lord.  I  do 
not  believe  that  Sexual  Selection,  even  with  the  aid  of 
Natural  Selection,  could  have  raised,  from  the  tadpole 
offspring  of  a  worm,  the  forms  of  beauty  which  meet  the 
eye  everywhere  in  the  world  of  living  things  around  us — 
among  insects,  fishes,  birds,  reptiles,  and  mammals. 

Lord  C.  I  suppose  the  next  point  that  claims  attention 
is  the  mental  and  moral  powers  possessed  by  man,  and  the 
seemingly  impassable  gulf  fixed,  by  his  possessing  those 
powers,  between  him  and  the  lower  animals.  How  does 
Mr.  Darwin  treat  this  part  of  his  subject  ? 

Homo.  Most  unsatisfactorily,  my  Lord.  We  might  expect 
that,  in  attempting,  as  he  does,  to  prove  that  the  mental 
powers  of  man  and  animals  are  the  same  in  kind,  and  differ 
only  in  respect  of  development,  he  would  b?gin  by  giving 
us  a  minute  and  careful  analysis  of  those  powers.  He  does 
not  seek  even  so  far  to  enlighten  us.  Without  having 
kindled  any  torch  to  jjuide  either  himself  or  his  readers,  he 
heedlessly  plunges  into  what  men  of  the  highest  intellect 
nave  always  felt  to  be  a  grout  jfnd  mysterious  dec]),  to  be 
explored,  then-fore,  with  awe  and  reverence.  He  manages, 


FIFTH   DAY'S   SITTING.  01 

however,  after  a  most  uncomfortable  fashion,  to  flounder  his 
"way  through  it,  but  not  without  giving  one  the  impression 
that  he  is  more  at  home  in  studying  the  instincts  and 
habits  of  the  beasts  of  the  earth  than  in  discussing  the 
wondrous  nature  and  noble  faculties  of  man. 

Lord  C.  Does  he  not  define  and  explain  what  he  means 
by  instinct  and  reason,  and  endeavour  to  point  out  the 
separating  line  between  them  ? 

Homo.  He  does  nothing  of  the  sort,  my  Lord.  In  his 
work  on  "The  Origin  of  Species,"  however,  referring  to 
instinct,  he  says,  "An  action  which  we  ourselves  should 
require  experience  to  enable  us  to  perform,  when  performed 
by  an  animal,  more  especially  by  a  very  young  one,  and 
when  performed  by  many  individuals  in  the  same  way, 
without  their  knowing  for  what  purpose  it  is  performed,  is 
usually  said  to  be  instinctive."  To  this  he  adds,  "  I  could 
show  that  none  of  these  characters  of  instinct  are  universal. 
A  little  dose,  as  Pierre  Huber  expresses  it,  of  judgment  or 
reason  often  comes  into  play,  even  in  animals  low  in  the 
scale  of  nature."  (Pp.  256,  257.) 

Lord  C.  Here  we  feel  our  need  of  definition.  "What 
does  Mr.  Darwin  mean  by  "  reason  "  ?  Does  he  mean  such 
reason,  or  reasoning  power,  as  man  possesses  ?  Many 
contend  that  the  lower  animals — dogs,  for  instance — possess 
an  inferior  kind  of  reason,  which  helps,  in  some  cases,  to 
guide  them.  When,  for  example,  they  have  to  decide 
to  which  of  two  contending  instincts  they  shall  yield, 
some  would  say  that  it  is  by  an  inferior  kind  of  reason 
that  they  decide  ;  others,  that  it  is  the  more  powerful 
instinct  that  sways  them.  When,  again,  they  imitate  the 
actions  of  man,  apparently  to  accomplish  a  certain  end,  e.  g., 
the  opening  of  a  door— a  dog  will  use  his  paws  for  this 
purpose — it  will  be  said  by  some  that  they  act  from  an 

G  2 


92  HOMO  v.  DAHWI.V. 

inferior  k''nd  of  reason.  Now,  even  granting  that  in  such 
cases  a  dog  acts  from  a  principle  higher  than  instinct, 
which  principle  may  be  called  reason,  such  reason  is  cer- 
tainly very  different  from  the  reason  that  influences  a  man 
when  he  compares  ideas,  weighs  motives,  prepares  for  the 
future,  determines  on  some  course  of  action,  or  engages  ia 
the  study  of  Philosophy  or  of  Natural  History.  We  cannot 
conceive  such  faculties  as  a  dog  possesses,  however  highly 
developed,  turned  to  such  subjects  as  those  on  which  man 
employs  his  faculties  habitually.  Bat  I  will  now  hear  what 
Mr.  Darwin  has  to  advance  as  evidence  that  the  mental 
and  moral  powers  of  man  may  have  arisen  by  development 
from  the  faculties  of  the  lower  animals. 

Darwin.  "  No  doubt,"  my  Lord,  "  the  difference  in  this 
respect,"  respect  of  mental  power,  "jsjmonnoiis,  even  if  we 
compare  the  mind  of  one  of  the  lowest  savages,  who  has  no 
words  to  express  any  number  higher  than  four,  and  who  uses 
no  abstract  terms  for  the  commonest  objects  or  affections, 
with  that  of  the  most  highly  organised  ape.  The  difference 
would,  no  doubt,  still  remain  immense,  even  if  one  of  the 
higher  apes  had  been  improved  or  civilized  as  much  as  a 
dog  has  been,  in  comparison  with  its  parent  form,  the  wolf 
or  jackal.  The  Fuegiansrank  among  the  lowest  barbarians; 
but  I  was  continually  struck  with  surprise  how  closely  the 
three  natives  on  board  II. M.S.  "  Ik-agio,"  who  had  lived 
some  years  in  England  and  could  talk  a  little  English, 
resembled  us  in  disposition,  and  in  most  of  our  mental 
faculties."  (Vol.  i.  p.  34.) 

Homo.  He  supposes,  my  Lord,  that  it  would  be  possible 
for  us  to  improve  and  civilize  MI  :ipc  as  we  can  a  dog. 
Now,  it  is  clear  that  the  dog  m;iy  he  improved,  and,  in  a 
certain  sense,  civilized,  but  wo  have  no  evidence  that  the 
ape  can.  Had  the  civilizing  of  this  cn-iitun-  been  possible, 


FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  93 

it  would,  doubtless,  long  ago  have  been  adopted  as  a  pet 
by  the  ladies.  An  ape  might  spend  its  lifetime  in  our 
country  without  acquiring  one  word  of  English,  and  it  will 
be  long  before  Mr.  Darwin  will  be  able  to  train  one  to 
resemble  us  either  in  disposition  or  mental  faculty. 

Lord  C.  So  far,  then,  Mr.  Darwin  has  been  but  indicating 
a  boundary  line  which  no  one  of  the  inferior  animals  ever 
has  crossed,  while  a  savage  can  cross  it  easily.  The  differ- 
ence here,  even  between  a  savage  and  any  animal,  may,  not 
improperly,  be  said  to  be  infinite.  What  Mr.  Darwin  says 
of  the  Fuegians,  who  "  rank  among  the  lowest  barbarians," 
is  most  important,  viz.,  that,  "  after  they  had  lived  some 
years  in  England,  and  had  acquired  a  little  of  our  language, 
he  was  continually  struck  with  surprise  at  how  closely  they 
resembled  us  in  disposition  and  in  most  of  our  mental 
faculties." 

Homo.  That  clearly  shows,  my  Lord,  that  the  mental 
faculties  of  man  are  not  inherited,  as,  on  Mr.  Darwin's 
hypothesis,  they  should  be.  From  whom  could  the 
Fuegians  have  inherited  their  mental  powers  ?  According 
to  Mr.  Darwin,  if  we  go  back  from  any  savage  race  in 
the  line  of  its  progenitors,  we  shall  find  it  savage  still. 
Yet  it  is  a  fact  that,  though  they  may  not  exercise  them, 
savage  races  poss3ss  all  the  mental  powers  of  civilized  races. 
But  they  cannot  have  become  possessed  of  them  through 
Natural  Selection  and  the  laws  of  inheritance,  for,  on  Mr. 
Darwin's  supposition,  their  progenitors  never  exercised  those 
powers.  Here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  Mr.  Darwin  contradicts 
and  disproves  his  own  hypothesis. 

Lord  C.  Clearly  so.  According  to  Mr.  Darwin's  hypo- 
thesis the  faculties  man  now  possesses  should  have  been 
gradually  acquired  by  mau's  progenitors  through  Natural 
{Selection,  and  transmitted  by  inheritance  to  his  posterity. 


04  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

According  to  facts  observed  and  recorded  by  Mr.  Darwin, 
those  faculties  are  possessed  by  savages  who  "  rank  among 
the  lowest  barbarians,"  and  who  could  therefore  have  had 
no  progenitors  who  exercised  those  faculties,  or  were 
capable  of  transmitting  them  ! 

Homo.  Thus,  my  Lord,  as  with  the  brain  of  savage  man, 
so  also  with  his  mental  powers.  Mr.  Darwin  is  utterly 
unable,  on  his  hypothesis,  to  account  for  the  savage  pos- 
sessing them.  If  we  suppose,  with  Mr.  Darwin,  that  the 
savage  is  descended  from  savage  progenitors,  the  fact  of 
his  possessing  a  brain — and  mental  powers  which  he  could 
not  possibly  have  inherited  from  those  progenitors,  seeing 
they  never  possessed  them — this  fact  would  show  that  the 
savage  was  made  for  a  far  higher  condition  of  life  than 
that  which  he  occupies.  Though  he  himself  is  not  aware 
of  it,  and  though  his  progenitors  could  not  possibly  have 
imagined  such  a  thing,  the  savage  possesses  an  intellect 
capable  of  ranging  through  the  universe,  and  penetrating 
into  the  deepest  secrets  of  nature.  Now,  Divine  purpose 
could  have  given  him  such  an  intellect,  but,  certainly, 
Natural  Selection  could  not. 

Lord  C.  From  which,  I  suppose,  you  would  infer,  either 
that  the  savage  is  descended  from  an  ancestry  superior  to 
himself,  and  has  sunk  from  a  higher  position  into  a  lower 
one  ;  or  that  he  was  created  that  he  might  occupy  a  far 
higher  level  of  life  than  that  on  which  we  find  him. 

Homo.  Precisely  so,  my  Lord,  but  either  supposition  is 
opposed  to  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis. 

Lord  C.  What  is  the  m  xt  point  ? 

Darwin.  "If  no  organic  being,  excepting  man,"  my  Lord, 
"had  possessed  any  mental  power,  or  if  his  powers  had  been 
of  a  wholly  different  nature  from  those  of  the  lower  animals, 
then  we  should  never  li;i\c  lx  en  able  to  convince  ourselves 


FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  95 

that  our  high  faculties  had  been  gradually  developed.  But 
it  can  be  clearly  shown  that  there  is  no  fundamental 
difference  of  this  kind.  We  must  also  admit  that  there  is 
a  much  wider  interval,  in  mental  power,  between  one  of  the 
lowest  fishes,  as  a  lamprey  or  lancelet,  and  one  of  the 
higher  apes,  than  between  an  ape  and  a  man  ;  yet  this 
immense  interval  is  filled  up  by  numberless  gradations." 
(Vol.  i.  pp.  34,  35.) 

Homo.  The  lamprey,  or  stone-sucker,  my  Lord,  is  a  kind 
of  eel  which  attaches  itself  by  the  mouth  to  stones  or  rocks, 
to  prevent  the  tide  or  current  from  carrying  it  away.  This 
I  hold  to  be  a  very  sensible  operation  on  its  part,  and  one 
that  man  himself,  in  a  similar  difficulty,  might  perform 
with  advantage.  The  lancelet  is  a  similar  kind  of  fish, 
smaller  in  size.  These  creatures  have  just  the  amount  of 
instinct,  or  u mental  power" — if  Mr.  Darwin  prefers  calling 
it  so — which  they  require.  Perhaps,  if  Mr.  Darwin  were  to 
take  pome  pains  with  a  lamprey,  he  might,  to  some  extent, 
succeed  in  improving,  or  even  in  civilizing  it — which  is 
more  than  he  can  do  with  an  ape  ;  but  he  would  be  unable 
to  teach  either  the  one  or  other  to  talk  English,  or  count 
four,  or  understand  an  abstract  term;  nor  could  he  bring 
them  to  resemble  us  in  disposition  and  mental  faculty.  This 
of  itself  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  interval,  in  mental 
power,  between  either  of  them  and  man,  is  practically 
infinite.  It  is  the  merest  folly,  then,  to  compare  them  with 
man.  Bat  this  is  only  another  of  the  follies  to  which  Mr. 
Darwin  is  driven  by  the  stress  of  his  argument. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  says  that  "  there  is  no  fundamental 
difference,"  in  mental  faculty,  between  man  and  the  lower 
animals.  Does  he  explain  what  he  means  by  a  "funda- 
mental difference  ?" — what,  in  his  view,  would  constitute 
such  a  difference  ? 


96  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

Hwmo.  My  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin  says  that  his  object,  in 
the  second  chapter  of  his  work,  "  is  solely  to  show  that 
there  is  no  fundamental  difference  between  man  and  the 
higher  mammals  in  their  mental  faculties,"  but  he  nowhere 
tells  us  what  he  would  regard  as  such  a  difference.  He 
maintains,  however,  that  man's  faculties  do  not  differ  in 
kind  from  those  of  the  lower  animals,  und  that  man's 
superiority  arises  entirely  from  his  being  more  perfectly 
developed. 

Lord  C.  Development,  then,  alone,  is  to  account  for  man's 
superiority. 

Homo.  Just  so,  my  Lord.  The  lofty  faculties  of  man 
were  once  in  embryo  in  a  thing  like  a  tadpole  !  The  mind 
of  Newton  once  lay  hid  in  a  creature  which  "hardly 
appeared  like  an  animal  " — which  consisted  merely  of  "  a 
simple,  tough,  leathery  sac,  with  two  small  projecting 
orifices,"  and  which  stuck  to  a  rock  or  bit  of  seaweed  that 
it  might  not  be  carried  away  by  the  tide.  Then,  my  Lord, 
HS  to  the  development  which  Mr.  Darwin  thinks  would  turn 
the  faculties  of  a  brute  .into  human  reason,  we  have  no 
evidence  that  it  is  a  possible  thing. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  has  certainly  adduced  none.  It 
will  not  be  necessary  for  us  to  consider  the  instincts  which 
are  common  to  man  with  the  lower  animals.  You  admit,  1 
suppose,  Homo,  that  there  are  many  points  in  which  those 
instincts  resemble  one  another  ? 

Homo.  Unquestionably,  my  Lord.  Man  has  an  animal 
nature,  like  the  inferior  creatures  around  him,  and  must 
consequently,  in  many  respects,  resemble  them.  The 
question  is,  whether  man  has  not  also  a  higher  nature 
which  they  do  not  partake  of,  and  cannot  comprehend,  and 
with  which  they  can  have  no  sympathy.  We  may  therefore 
pass  by  what  Mr.  Darwin  says  on  "instincts  which  are 


FIFTH  DAY'S   SITTING.  97 

common  to  man  with  the  lower  animals."  I  might  object 
to  statements  he  makes  regarding  "  the  emotions,  curiosity, 
imitation,  memory,"  &c.,  but  we  had  better  proceed  at  once 
to  what  he  refers  to  as  points  in  which  man  is  supposed  to 
differ  essentially  from  all  other  animals. 

Lord  C.  Will  Mr.  Darwin  mention  what  these  points 
are? 

Darwin.  "  It  has  been  asserted,"  my  Lord,  "  that  man 
alone  is  capable  of  progressive  improvement  ;  that  he  alone 
makes  use  of  tools  or  fire  ;  domesticates  other  animals  ; 
possesses  property,  or  employs  language  ;  that  no  other 
animal  is  self-conscious,  comprehends  itself,  has  the  power 
of  abstraction,  or  possesses  general  ideas  ;  that  man  alone 
has  a  sense  of  beauty,  is  liable  to  caprice,  has  the  feeling  of 
gratitude,  mystery,  &c. ;  believes  in  God,  or  is  endowed 
with  a  conscience.  I  will  hazard  a  few  remarks  on  the 
more  important  and  interesting  of  these  points.  Archbishop 
Sumner  formerly  maintained  that  man  alone  is  capable  of 
progressive  improvement."  (Vol.  i.  p.  49.) 

Homo.  It  is  clear,  my  Lord,  that  by  "progressive  im- 
provement," the  Archbishop  meant  mfoftnito  progressive 
improvement.  He  meant  that  man  has  gone  on  advancing, 
as  Mr.  Darwin  himself  admits,  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  his 
existence  until  now  ;  and  that  there  is  apparently  no  limit 
to  his  capacity  for  advancement.  Man  alone  inherits,  and 
is  able  to  use,  the  accumulated  knowledge  of  the  past,  and 
to  transmit  it  augmented  to  the  future. 

Lord  C.  Precisely  so  ;  Mr.  Darwin  himself  cannot  doubt 
this. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "everyone  who  has  had  experience 
in  setting  traps,  knows  that  young  animals  can  be  canght 
more  easily  than  old  ones ;  and  they  can  be  much  more 
pMsily  Approached  by  an  enemy.  Even  with  respect  to  old 


98  HOMO   V.  DA11WIX. 

animals,  it  is  impossible  to  catch  many  in  the  same  place, 
and  in  the  same  kind  of  trap,  or  to  destroy  them  by  the 
same  kind  of  poison  ;  yet  it  is  improbable  that  all  should 
have  partaken  of  the  poison,  and  impossible  that  all  should 
have  been  caught  in  the  trap.  They  must  learn  caution  by 
seeing  their  brethren  caught  or  poisoned.  .  .  If  we  look  to 
successive  generations,  or  to  the  race,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  birds  and  other  animals  gradually  both  acquire,  and 
lose,  caution  in  relation  to  man  or  other  enemies ;  and  this 
caution  is  certainly,  in  chief  part,  an  inherited  habit  or 
instinct,  but,  in  part,  the  result  of  individual  experience. 
.  .  .  Our  domestic  dogs  .  .  .  have  progressed  in  certain 
moral  qualities,  such  as  affection,  trustworthiness,  temper, 
and  probably  in  general  intelligence.  The  common  rat  has 
conquered  and  beaten  several  other  spe'jies  throughout 
Europe,  in  parts  of  North  America,  New  Zealand,  and 
recently  in  Formosa,  as  well  as  on  the  mainland  of  China. 
Mr.  Swinhoe,  who  describes  these  latter  cases,  attributes  the 
victory  of  the  common  rat  to  its  superior  cunning  ;  and  this 
latter  quality  may  be  attributed  to  the  habitual  exercise  of 
all  its  faculties  in  avoiding  extirpation  by  man,  as  well  as 
to  nearly  all  the  less  cunning  or  weak-minded  rats  having 
been  successively  destroyed  by  him.  To  maintain,  inde- 
pendently of  any  direct  evidence,  that  no  animal,  during 
the  course  of  ages,  has  progressed  in  intellect,  or  other 
mental  faculties,  is  to  beg  the  question  of  the  evolution  of 
Bpecies."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  49,  51.) 

Lord  C.  It  may  be  quite  true,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  in  birds,  and  rats,  and  other 
animals,  mny  become  more  or  less  keen  as  it  is  more  or  less 
ised,  but  you  surely  cannot  mean  that  this  circumstance 
shows  them  to  be  capable  of  indefinite  improvement,  and  to 
possess  the  same  kind  of  mental  powers  that  man  possesses 


99 

Homo.  Pray,  observe,  my  Lord,  the  singular  way  in 
which  Mr.  Darwin  reasons.  He  is  replying  to  Archbishop 
Stunner's  remark,  "that  man  alone  is  capable  of  progressive 
improvement,"  meaning,  clearly  enough,  such  an  improve- 
ment as  has  been  going  on  among  men  for  thousands  of 
years,  is  going  on  now,  and,  for  aught  we  can  tell,  may  go 
on  for  ever.  In  reply  to  this,  Mr.  Darwin  urges  that  the 
common  rat  is  superior  in  cunning  to  other  rats,  and  that 
it  may  owe  this  superiority  to  the  habitual  exercise  of  all 
its  faculties  in  avoiding  extirpation  by  man.  He  thus 
makes  the  supposed  improvement  of  an  instinct  in  rats  to 
be  parallel  to  the  advancement  of  the  whole  human  race  in 
knowledge.  The  Archbishop  says,  "  Man  alone  of  all 
animals  is  capable  of  indefinite  progressive  improvement, 
and  therefore  differs  in  faculty  from  aU  other  animals." 
Mr.  Darwin  replies,  "The  common  rat  is  superior  in  cunning 
to  all  other  rats,  and  may  perhaps  have  become  so  through 
contact  with  man  ;  the  common  rat,  therefore,  is  capable  of 
indefinite,  progressive  improvement."  This,  surely,  is 
reasoning  with  the  imagination.  Mr.  Darwin  talks  of  our 
44  begging  the  question  of  the  evolution  of  species  "  !  He 
is  begging  it  himself  by  such  reasoning. 

Lord  C.  You  say,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  "the  superior 
cunning  of  the  rat  may  be  attributed  to  the  exercise  of  all 
its  faculties  to  avoid  being  extirpated  by  man."  Will  you 
mention  ths  faculties  it  has  exercised  to  this  end  ?  I 
should  like  to  know  what  faculties,  in  addition  to  its  five 
senses,  you  ascribe  to  the  rat. 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  does  not  go  so  minutely  into  his 
subject  as  your  Lordship's  question  supposes.  Probably, 
however,  he  would  say  that,  in  addition  to  the  usual 
senses,  a  rat  has  memory,  perhaps  also  curiosity,  imita- 
tion, attention,  imagination,  and  reason.  He  supposes 


100  HCilO   V.    DAKVV1X. 

other  animals  to  possess  these  faculties  ;  then,  why  not 
the  rat  ? 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin  speaks  of  the  dog  having  "pro- 
gressed in  affection,  trustworthiness,  temper,  and  probably 
in  general  intelligence."  Does  he  try  to  show  that  the 
dog  of  to-day  is  in  advance  of  the  dog  of  a  thousand  years 
ago  in  these  qualities  ? 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  does  not  attempt  to  show 
that  the  dog  has  advanced.  I  believe  it  would  be  impossible 
for  him  to  show  that  any  animal  whatever,  from  the  Ascidian 
up  to  the  ape  has  advanced,  unless  it  be  those  that  have  done 
to  through  the  skill  and  care  of  man  himself,  or  by  their 
otherwise  coming  into  contact  with  him. 

Lord  C.  On  this  point,  then,  we  come  to  the  conclusion 
that,  while  certain  of  the  lower  animals  are  capable  of 
improvement  in  some- of  their  instincts  or  faculties,  within 
a  certain  limited  range,  we  have  no  proof  that  any  of  them 
are  capable  of  indefinite  progressive  improvement  as  man  is. 
"What  is  the  next  point  ? 

Darwin.  "The  Duke  of  Argyll  remarks,"  my  Lord, 
"  that  the  fashioning  of  an  implement  for  a  special  purpose 
is  absolutely  peculiar  to  man  ;  and  he  considers  that  this 
forms  an  unmeasurable  gulf  between  him  and  the  brutes. 
It  is  no  doubt  a  very  important  distinction,  but  there 
appears  to  me  much  truth  in  Sir  J.  Lubbock's  suggestion, 
that  when  primeval  man  first  used  flint  stones  for  any 
purpose,  he  would  have  accidentally  splintered  them,  and 
would  then  have  used  the  sharp  fragments.  From  this  step 
it  would  be  a  small  one  to  intentionally  break  the  flints, 
and  not  a  very  wide  step  to  rudely  fashion  them."  (Vol.  i. 
pp.  52,  53.) 

Lord  C.  Granting  what  you  say  to  be  true,  Mr.  Darwin, 
it  neither  closes,  nor  bridges  over,  the  gulf  between  man 


FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING/'  lot 

an.l  the  brute  to  which  the  Duke  refers.  Apes  have  existed 
quite  as  long  as  man,  but  no  one  of  them  has  ever  taken 
the  steps  in  question,  nor,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  ever  likely 
to  do  so. 

Darwin.  "  It  has  often  been  said,"  my  Lord,  "  that  no 
animal  uses  any  tool  ;  but  the  chimpanzee,  in  a  state  of 
nature,  cracks  a  native  fruit,  somewhat  like  a  walnut,  with 
a  stone."  (Vol.  i.  p.  51.) 

Lord  C.  If  the  chimpanzee  does  so  now,  he  has  doubtless 
done  so  for  thousands  of  years.  How  is  it  that,  during  all 
that  time,  he  has  not  learned  to  fashion  a  tool  for  breaking 
nuts,  and  that  he  cannot  supply  you  with  this  proof  of  his 
possessing  mental  qualities  like  those  of  man  ? 

Homo.  And  how  is  it,  my  Lord,  that  even  Mr.  Darwin 
himself  cannot  teach  an  ape  to  fashion  a  tool  ?  The  brute 
is  too  obstinate  for  him.  Yet  he  talks  of  animals,  during 
the  course  of  ages,  progressing  in  intellect !  Will  he 
undertake  to  teach  an  ape  or  any  kind  of  monkey,  or  any 
animal  whatever,  the  use  of -fire  ? 

Lord  C.  I  presume  Mr.  Darwin  will  rather  decline  the 
task. 

Homo.  Why  should  he,  my  Lord,  if,  as  he  maintains, 
animals  are  capable  of  progressive  improvement  ? 

Lord  C.  I  shall  be  glad,  however,  to  know  what  Mr. 
Darwin  does  say  on  this  point — the  fact  that  man  alone 
makes  use  of  fire. 

Homo.  He  says  nothing  about  it  whatever,  my  Lord — 
a  circumstance  which  I  can  account  for  only  by  supposing 
that  he  is  as  much  afraid  of  fire,  in  connection  with  this 
subject,  as  an  anthropomorphous  ape  would  be  afraid 
of  fire,  were  it  consuming  the  tree  in  which  it  has  sought 
refuge. 

Lord  C.  Then  I  must  say  that  Mr.  Darwin  gives  the 


102  HOilO  V.   DARWIN. 

"go-by"  to  a  most  important  branch  of  evidence  which 
tells  strongly  against  his  hypothesis.  He  has  himself 
mentioned  the  fact  that  man  alone  makes  use  of  fire. 
.  Homo.  Very  true,  my  Lord.  He  also  refers  repeatedly 
to  the  fact  of  man  having  "  discovered  the  art  of  making 
fire,"  but  he  says  nothing  of  the  farther  fact  that  no  one  of 
the  lower  animals  has  either  discovered,  or  can  be  taught  to 
use  this  element. 

Lord  C.  What  comes  next  ? 

Darwin.  "  The  anthropomorphous  apes,"  my  Lord, 
"  guided  probably  by  instinct,  build  for  themselves  tem- 
porary platforms  ;  but,  as  many  instincts  are  largely  con- 
trolled by  reason,  the  simpler  ones,  such  as  this  of  building 
a  platform,  might  readily  pass  into  a  voluntary  and 
conscious  act."  (Vol.  i.  p.  53.) 

Homo.  Here,  again,  my  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin  is  dealing,  not 
with  facts,  but  with  probabilities.  The  apes  of  which  he 
speaks  were  "  guided  probably  by  instinct ;"  this  instinct 
might  pass  into  "a  voluntary  and  conscious  act."  There 
is  nothing  certain  here,  my  Lord.  Mr.  Darwin  is  again 
using  his  imagination  in  reasoning  with  us.  Besides,  if 
the  instinct  of  an  ape,  in  building  a  platform,  might  pass 
into  a  voluntary  and  conscious  act,  might  not  the  instinct 
of  a  bird  in  building  a  nest  do  the  same  ;  or  the  instinct  of 
a  mole  in  burrowing  in  the  ground  ? 

Darwin.  "The  orang,"  my  Lord,  "is  known  to  cover 
itself  at  night  with  the  leaves  of  the  pandanus  ;  and  Brehm 
states  that  one  of  his  baboons  used  to  protect  itself  from 
the  heat  of  the  sun  by  throwing  a  straw  mat  over  its  head. 
In  these  latter  habits  we  probably  see  the  first  steps  towards 
some  of  the  simpler  arts,  namely,  rude  architecture  and 
dress,  as  they  arose  amongst  the  early  progenitors  of  man," 
Vol.  i.  p.  53.) 


FIFTH   DAY'S  SITTING.  103 

Lord  C.  It  would  be  to  some  purpose  if  Mr.  Darwin  could 
Bhow  that  the  orang's  covering  itself  with  leaves  is  a  recent 
invention  on  its  part  ? 

Homo.  I  have  known  a  dog,  my  Lord,  to  work  its  way 
under  straw,  and  even  under  a  blanket,  to  keep  itself  warm 
in  cold  weather,  and  it  is  well  known  that  cattle  will  seek 
the  shade  of  trees  as  a  screen  from  the  heat  of  the  sun.  As 
for  the  baboon,  we  may  regard  it  as  taking  a  first  step  in 
architecture  when  it  makes  the  straw  mat  for  the  purpose 
of  screening  itself  from  the  heat,  or  improves  on  this 
method  of  protection  by  some  new  invention  of  its  own. 

Lord  C.  How  is  it  if  the  orang  has  taken  a  first  step  in 
architecture,  that  it  does  not  proceed  to  take  a  second  ? 

Homo.  And  how  is  it,  my  Lord,  that  even  man  himself 
cannot  teach  the  brute  to  do  so  ?  But  Mr.  Darwin  has  no 
answer  for  such  questions. 

Lord  0.  What  have  you  to  say,  then,  Mr.  Darwin,  re- 
garding language  ? 

Darwin.  "  Articulate  language,"  my  Lord,  "  is  peculiar 
to  man ;  but  he  uses,  in  common  with  the  lower  animals, 
inarticulate  cries  to  express  his  meaning,  aided  by  gestures 
and  the  movements  of  the  muscles  of  the  face."  (Vol.  i. 
p.  54.) 

Homo.  I  presume,  my  Lord,  it  is  to  articulate  language 
you  are  now  referring,  and  not  to  the  inarticulate  cries 
either  of  man  or  animal.  The  question  is  not  whether 
man  has  certain  instincts  and  powers  corresponding  with 
those  of  the  lower  animals.  No  one  doubts  that.  In  so 
far  as  man  is  an  animal,  he  must,  of  course,  have  qualities 
resembling  those  of  animals.  But  the  question  is  whether 
man,  while  an  animal,  is  not  also  more  than  an  animal,  and 
whether,  therefore,  he  does  not  possess  powers  which  no 
animal  either  does  or  can  possess.  Mr.  Darwin  is  leading 


104  HOMO  V.  DARWLV. 

us  away  from  the  point  when  he  talks  about  the  inarticu- 
late cries  of  man  and  animals.  Le6  him  tell  us  whether 
any  creature  on  this  earth,  except  man,  can  rationally  use,  or 
be  taught  rationally  to  use,  articulate  language. 

Darwin.  "  It  is  not  the  mere  power  of  articulation,"  my 
Lord,  "  that  distinguishes  man  from  other  animals,  for,  as 
every  one  knows,  parrots  can  talk  ;  but  it  is  his  largo 
power  of  connecting  definite  sounds  with  definite  ideas  ; 
and  this  obviously  depends  on  the  development  of  the 
mental  faculties."  (Vol.  i.  p.  54.) 

Lord  G.  That  is  just  the  point,  Mr.  Darwin ;  let  us 
therefore  confine  ourselves  to  it.  Of  course,  parrots  may 
be  taught  to  utter  a  few  articulate  sounds,  and  so  may 
starlings.  But  the  question  is,  Do  any  of  the  lower 
animals  possess  "  man's  large  power  of  connecting  definite 
sounds  with  definite  ideas  ?"  Can  you  mention  one  that 
Las  this  power,  or  in  which  it  may  certainly  be  developed  ? 

Homo.  You  will  not  find  it  easy,  my  Lord,  to  hold  Mr. 
Darwin  to  the  point,  lie  knows  very  well  what  the  point 
is,  for  he  states  it  clearly  enough  ;  but  he  no  sooner  does 
so  than  he  starts  away  from  it  like  a  scared  animal,  and 
never  ventures  to  look  near  it  again.  Would  you  believe 
it,  my  Lord  ?  He  gives  us  nine  pages  on  language,  without 
once  attempting  to  discuss  in  them  that  peculiarity  which, 
he  says,  distinguishes  man  from  other  animals — "his  large 
power  of  connecting  definite  sounds  with  definite  ideas." 

Lord  C.  What  then  are  the  points  he  takes  up  ? 

Homo.  He  tells  us,  my  Lord,  that  the  dog  baiks  in  four 
or  five  different  tones,  to  express  so  many  different  feelings 
that  may  influence  him  ;  that  the  sounds  uttered  by  birds 
offer,  in  several  respects,  the  nearest  iiiuilogy  to  language  ; 
and  he  gives  details  which  he  thinks  shows  that  an  in- 
stinctive tendency  to  acquire  an  art  is  not  a  peculiarity 


FIFTH   DAY'S   SITTING.  105 

confined  to  man.  All  this,  your  Lordship  will  at  once 
perceive,  falls  far  short  of  the  mark.  He  then  gives  us  a 
dissertation  on  the  origin  of  articulate  language ;  tells  us 
that  "  some  early  progenitor  of  man  probably  used  his  voice 
largely,  as  does  one  of  the  gibbon-apes  of  the  present  day, 
in  producing  musical  cadences  ;"  that  "monkeys  certainly 
understand  much  tint  is  said  to  them  by  man,"  and  "  utter 
signal  cries  of  danger-  to  their  fellows  ;"  and,  in  this,  he 
finds  what  would  have  been  "  a  first  step  in  the  formation 
of  a  language."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  54-57.) 

Lord  C.  What  are  Mr.  Darwin's  own  words  on  this 
point  ? 

Darwin.  "  As  monkeys  in  a  state  of  nature,"  my  Lord, 
"  utter  signal  cries  of  danger  to  their  fellows,  it  does  not 
appear  altogether  incredible  that  some  unusually  wise  ape- 
like animal  should  have  thought  of  imitating  the  growl  of 
a  beast  of  prey,  so  as  to  indicate  to  his  fellow  monkeys  the 
nature  of  the  expected  danger.  And  this  would  have  been 
a  first  step  in  the  formation  of  a  language."  (Vol.  i.  p.  57.) 

Homo.  It  is  rather  singular,  my  Lord,  that  this  "  unusu- 
ally wise  ape-like  animal,"  which  Mr.  Darwin  cannot  prove 
ever  existed,  but  to  which,  nevertheless,  the  thought  oc- 
curred of  imitating  the  growl  of  a  beast  of  prey,  to  warn 
his  fellow  monkeys  of  danger,  should  not  have  thought 
also  of  imitating  the  hiss  of  the  serpent,  to  intimate  to  them 
the  proximity  of  that-  reptile,  of  which,  according  to  Mr. 
Darwin,  monkeys  have  an  instinctive  dread.  The  organs 
of  an  ape  are  as  fit  for  hissing  as  for  growling. 

Darwin.  "  As  the  voice,"  my  Lord,  "  was  used  more  and 
more,  the  vocal  organs  would  have  been  strengthened  and 
perfected  through  the  principle  of  the  inherited  effects  of 
use  ;  and  this  would  have  reacted  on  the  power  of  speech. 
But  the  relation  between  the  continued  use  of  language, 

H 


.106  HOMO   V.   DARTVIX. 

and  tlie  development  of  the  brain,  has  no  doubt  been  f;»r 
more  important.  The  mental  powers,  in  some  early  pro- 
genitor  of  man,  must  have  been  more  highly  developed 
than  in  any  existing  ape,  before  even  the  most  imperfect 
form  of  speech  could  have  come  into  use  ;  but  \ve  may 
confidently  believe  that  the  continued  use  and  advancement 
of  this  power  would  have  reacted  on  the  mind  by  enabling 
and  encouraging  it  to  carry  on  long  trains  of  thought." 
(Vol.  i.  p.  57.) 

Hqmo.  In  this  passage,  your  Lordship  will  perceive  that 
Mr.  Darwin  takes  for  granted  what  he  cannot  prove— viz., 
that  man  had  ape-like  progenitors,  and  that  some  one  of 
them  possessed  mental  powers  more  highly  developed  than 
those  of  any  existing  ape.  Reasoning  from  this  highly- 
developed,  hypothetical  ape,  he  tells  us  that,  by  exercising 
what  power  of  utterance  it  had,  the  brain  enlarged  and  the 
in  i  ml  improved,  and  the  vocal  organs  strengthened,  gene- 
ratii  n  after  generation,  till  this  series  of  changes  in  a  race 
of  apes  culminated  in  man  l>  But  all  this  is  purely 
imaginary.  Mr.  Darwin  cannot  produce  even  the  shadow 
of  a  proof  that  this  "unusually  wise  ape-like  animal"  ever 
existed  to  transmit  his  wisdom  to  his  descendants,  or  that 
he  had  descendants  to  inherit  it.  Yet  he  tells  us  we  may 
"confidently  believe"  it  !  Instead  of  trying  to  prove  to 
ns  that  such  development  has  occurred,  he  asks  us  "confi- 
dently to  believe  "  that  it  has  occurred  ! 

Lord  0.  Mr.  Darwin  certainly  reasons  very  strangely. 
It  is  a  singular  circumstance,  moreover,  that,  if  the  "  unus- 
ually wise  ape-like  animal"  which  he  supposes  took  the 
first  step  in  the  formation  of  a  language,  ever  really  existed, 
there  should  not  have  arisen  other  "unusually  wise"  apes 
to  take  farther  steps  in  the  same  direction,  so  that  there 
should  have  been  speaking  apes  at  the  present  day.  But 


FIFTH  DAY'S  .SITTING.  107 

no  existing  race  of  apes  seems  to  have  got  beyond  the 
"  growl "  of  which  Mr.  Darwin  has  spoken. 

Homo.  Nor  even  so  far  as  that,  my  Lord.  No  existing 
race  of  apes  ever  had  this  "  unusually  wise  "  progenitor 
to  teach  them  to  imitate  the  growl  of  a  beast  of  prey  to 
warn  their  "brethren"  of  danger.  Only  the  race  which 
developed  into  man  was  so  favoured ! 

Lord  C.  What  follows  after  this  ? 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  goes  on,  my  Lord,  through  page  after 
page,  telling  us,  among  other  things  as  little  to  the  point, 
that,  "  as  Home  Tooke  observes,  language  is  an  art,  like 
brewing  or  baking,"  and  not  an  instinct ;  that  "  the  sounds 
uttered  by  birds  offer  in  several  respects  the  nearest  analogy 
to  language,"  and  what  he  "  cannot  doubt "  as  to  the  origin 
of  language  ;  that  ants  communicate  among  themselves 
" by  means  of  their  antennae  ;"  that  "we  might  have  used 
our  fingers  "  for  speech,  but  that  the  loss  of  our  hands, 
while  thus  employed,  would  have  been  a  serious  incon- 
venience ;  that  "  the  fact  of  the  higher  apes  not  using  their 
vocal  organs  for  speech,  no  doubt  results  from  their  intel- 
ligence not  being  sufficiently  advanced ;"  that,  in  this 
respect,  they  are  like  those  "birds  which  possess  organs  fitted 
for  singing,  though  they  never  sing  ;"  and  that  the  crow 
has  "  vocal  organs  similarly  constructed  "  to  those  of  the 
nightingale,  though  it  uses  them  merely  for  "  croaking." 
He  thus  wanders  from  one  unimportant  point  to  another, 
always  avoiding  the  real  point,  and  then  winds  up  as 
follows : — "  From  these  few  and  imperfect  remarks  I  con- 
clude that  the  extremely  complex  and  regular  construction 
of  many  barbarous  languages,  is  no  proof  that  they  owe 
their  origin  to  a  special  act  of  creation.  Nor,  as  we  have 
seen,  does  the  faculty  of  articulate  speech,  in  itself,  offer  any 
insuperable  objection  to  the  belief  that  man  has  been 

H  2 


108  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

* 

developed  from  some  lower  form.*'  (Vol.  i.  p.  62.)  Now,  the 
question,  my  Lord,  is,  not  whether  languages  owe  their 
origin  to  a  separate  act  of  creation,  but  whether  any  inferior 
animal  possesses  "  man's  large  power  of  connecting  definite 
sounds  with  definite  ideas."  Moreover,  when  Mr.  Darwin 
says  that  "  the  faculty  of  articulate  speech,  in  itself,"  does 
not  "  offer  any  insuperable  objection  to  the  belief  that  man 
has  been  developed  from  some  lower  form,"  he  is  begging 
the  question  in  dispute. 

Lord  O.  Clearly  so.  Put  in  another  form,  the  question 
at  present  is,  Does  not  man's  possession  of  the  faculty 
of  articulate  speech  offer  an  insuperable  objection  to  the 
belief  that  he  has  been  developed  from  some  lower 
form? 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  ventures  to  say,  "  we  have 
seen  that  it  does  not  ;"  but  we  have  seen  nothing  of  the 
kind.  Here  again  his  imagination  comes  into  play.  First 
he  imagines  a  thing  ;  then  he  thinks  he  sees  it ;  then,  that 
others  see  it  as  well  as  himself.  Finally,  he  writes  it  down 
as  a  scientific  fact,  and  thus  builds  up  his  hypothesis. 

'Lord  C.  What  points  come  next  ? 

Darwin.  "  Self-consciousness"  my  Lord  ;  "  Indiri<luality, 
Abstraction,  General  Ideas,  &c.  It  would  be  useless  to 
attempt  discussing  these  high  faculties,  which,  according 
to  several  recent  writers,  make  the  sole  and  complete  dis- 
tinction between  man  and  the  brutes,  for  hardly  two  authors 
agree  in  their  definitions.  Such  faculties  could  not  have 
been  fully  developed  in  man  until  his  mental  powers  had 
advanced  to  a  high  standard,  and  this  implies  the  use  of  a 
perfect  language."  (Vol.  i.  p.  62.) 

Homo.  If  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  had  wished  to  discuss 
these  faculties,  he  might  easily  have  found  definitions  which 
would  have  answered  the  purpose.  But,  after  giving  us 


FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  109 

nine  pages  on  language,  without  coming  to  the  point,  he 
gives  us  one  page  on  "  these  high  faculties"  which,  he  tells 
us,  "  several  recent  writers  make  the  sole  and  complete 
distinction  between  man  and  the  brutes."  This  looks  more 
like  again  avoiding  a  difficulty  than  boldly  meeting  it. 
Will  your  Lordship  observe,  also,  that  here  again  Mr. 
Darwin  is  begging  the  question  he  professes  to  discuss  ? 
He  takes  it  for  granted  that  man's  mental  powers  were 
gradually  developed,  which  is  just  the  point  now  in  debate. 
He  thus,  as  usual,  tries  to  prove  his  hypothesis  by  assuming 
it  to  be  true. 

Lord  C.  It  would  be  more  satisfactory,  certainly,  if  Mr. 
Darwin  would  bring  forward  proof  of  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  man's  mental  powers.  But  it  would  be  difficult  to 
show  that  we  moderns,  notwithstanding  all  the  advantages 
we  unquestionably  have  over  the  ancients,  possess  loftier 
mental  powers  than  were  displayed  by  them.  Mr.  Darwin 
will  not  venture  to  say  that  Homer,  Plato,  Aristotle,  and 
many  others,  were  not,  in  this  respect,  fully  abreast  of 
ourselves. 

Darwin.  "  No  one  supposes,"  my  Lord,  "  that  one  of  the 
lower  animals  reflects  whence  he  comes  or  whither  he  goes 
— what  is  death  or  what  is  life — and  so  forth.  But  can  we 
feel  sure  that  an  old  dog,  with  an  excellent  memory  and 
some  power  of  imagination,  as  shown  by  his  dreams,  never 
reflects  on  his  past  pleasures  in  the  chase  ?  and  this  would 
be  a  form  of  self-consciousness.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
Biichner  has  remarked,  how  little  can  the  hard-worked  wife 
of  a  degra^od  Australian  savage,  who  uses  hardly  any 
abstract  words,  and  cannot  count  above  four,  exert  her  self- 
consciousness,  or  reflect  on  the  nature  of  her  own  existence ! " 
(Vol.  i.  p.  52.) 

Lord  C.  If  your  hypothesis  is  to  stand,  Mr.  Darwin,  it 


110  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

must  be  sustained  by  facts.  Now,  you  are  not  stating  a 
fact  when  you  ask,  "  Can  we  feel  sure  that  an  old  dog  never 
reflects  on  his  past  pleasures  in  the  chase  ?  "  You  yourself 
merely  suppose  he  does,  but  are  evidently  not  certain  of  it. 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  is  thus  unable,  my  Lord,  even  when 
taking  the  argument  his  own  way,  to  find  self- consciousness 
in  a  dog.  The  huntsman  is  self-conscious  when  he  recalls 
the  events  of  the  chase,  and  the  part  he  himself  took  in  it, 
anck-discusses  them  with  his  friends  ;  but  can  Mr.  Darwin 
himself  imagine  a  hound  remembering  the  circumstances 
even  of  yesterday's  chase,  and  reasoning  on  them  with  his 
fellow  hounds  ?  Has  he  ever  seen  a  pack  of  hounds  con- 
ferring together  on  the  events  of  the  chase  when  it  is  over, 
each  showing  himself  conscious,  by  the  tone  in  which  ho 
barks,  of  the  part  he  has  had  in  it  ?  As  to  the  hard-worked 
wife  of  the  Australian  savage,  Mr.  Darwin  does  not  venture 
to  deny  to  her,  degraded  though  she  be,  the  power  of 
exerting  self-consciousness,  and  reflecting  on  her  own  ex- 
istence. Even  granting  that  she  uses  hardly  any  abstract 
words,  and  cannot  count  above  four,  the  fact  that  she  does 
use  some  abstract  words,  and  can  count  four,  is  sufficient  to 
prove  that  she  possesses  the  power  of  abstraction,  and  can 
form  general  ideas.  She  can  also  do  what  Mr.  Darwin  tells 
us  no  one  of  the  lower  animals  can  do — she  can  reflect  on 
"whence  she  comes  and  whither  she  goes— what  is  death 
and  what  is  life,  and  so  forth."  We  have  here  then,  on 
Mr.  Darwin's  own  showing,  even  in  the  lowest  form  of 
savage  life,  all  the  high  faculties  of  which  he  speaks, — Felf- 
consciousness,  Abstraction,  General  Ideas,  and  also  Indi- 
viduality, for  the  others  imply  this  ;  but  Mr.  Darwin  fails 
to  show  even  the  dawn  of  any  one  of  these  faculties  in  any 
brute  whatever. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  "that  animals  retain  their  mental 


FIFTH   DAY'S  SITTING.  Ill 

individuality  is  unquestionable.  "When  my  voice  awakened 
a  train  o:  old  associations  in  the  mind  of  my  dog,  he  must 
have  retained  his  mental  individuality,  although  every 
atom  of  his  brain  had  probably  undergone  change  more 
than  once  during  the  interval  of  five  years.  This  dog 
might  have  brought  forward  the  argument  lately  advanced 
to  crush  all  evolutionists,  and  said,  'I  abide  amid  all 
mental  moods  and  all  material  changes.' "  (Vol.  i.  p.  63.) 

Homo.  No  doubt,  my  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin's  dog  was  the 
same  dog  he  had  been  five  years  before,  but,  unquestionably, 
the  dog  did  not  possess  that  consciousness  of  his  own 
mental  individuality  that  would  have  enabled  him  either  to 
reflect  on  it,  or  to  affirm  it.  Mr.  Darwin  puts  the  words, 
"  I  abide  amid  all  mental  moods  and  all  material  changes," 
in  his  dog's  mouth  ;  but  he  cannot  suppose  either  this 
thought,  or  this  consciousness,  to  have  existed  in  the  dog's 
mind. 

Lord  C.  It  thus  appears,  Mr.  Darwin,  that  you  cannot 
prove  any  of  the  inferior  animals  to  be  possessed  of  the 
high  faculties  in  question — Self -consciousness,  Abstraction,, 
General  Ideas,  or  Individuality.  When  apes,  and  dogs,  and 
horses  become  capable  of  abstraction,  and  can  form  general 
ideas,  they  will  be  able  to  use  their  powers  of  reason  and 
imagination  to  better  purpose  than  at  present. 

Darwin.  The  next  point,  my  Lord,  is  "  The  sense  of 
beauty.  This  sense  has  been  declared  to  be  peculiar  to 
man.  But  when  we  behold  male  birds  elaborately  dis- 
playing their  plumes  and  splendid  colours  before  the 
females,  while  other  birds,  not  thus  decorated,  make  no 
such  display,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  females 
admire  the  beauty  of  their  male  partners."  (Vol.  i.  p.  63.) 

Homo.  I  willingly  grant,  my  Lord,  that  the  beauty  of 
birds  is  a  source  of  enjoyment  to  them,  but  this  is  quite  a 


112  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

different  thing  from  their  having  such  a  sense  of  beauty  ns 
man  possesses.  A  bird  can  admire  only  itself,  or  others  of 
its  own  species.  Its  sense  of  beauty  has  a  very  narrow 
range,  though,  within  that  range,  it  serves  an  evident  and 
necessary  purpose.  But  is  any  bird  conscious  of  the  beauty 
of  flowers  ?  Can  a  peacock,  or  a  peahen,  admire,  or  be 
taught  to  admire,  a  lily  or  a  rose  ?  Mr.  Darwin  himself 
says,  "  Obviously  no  animal  would  be  capable  of  admiring 
such  scenes  as  the  heavens  at  night,  a  beautiful  landscape, 
or  refined  music."  "  Such  high  tastes,"  he  adds,  "  are  not 
enjoyed  by  barbarians  o  uneducated  persons."  But  bar- 
barians and  uneducated  persons  may  easily  be  so  cultured 
as  to  have  these  high  tastes  developed  in  them.  This 
is  more  than  can  be  said  of  any  animal.  In  animals,  the 
sense  of  beauty  is  but  a  confined  and  narrow  instinct,  which 
remains  the  same  age  after  age  ;  in  man  it  is  a  high  and 
complex  faculty,  which  may  be  cultured  and  improved,  and 
transmitted  onwards,  purified  and  refined,  from  generation 
to  generation. 

Lord  0.  I  think,  Mr.  Darwin,  you  must  admit  that  the 
sense  of  beauty  which  certain  animals  possess  is  a  mere 
unimproveable  instinct,  operating  within  a  very  narrow 
range,  and  incapable  of  extension  beyond  that  range  ;  while, 
in  man,  this  sense  may  be  so  trained  as  to  become  one  of 
the  loftiest  faculties  of  his  nature.  Man  can  speak  not 
only  of  a  beautiful  bird,  or  a  beautiful  flower,  or  a  beautiful 
landscape,  but  of  a  beautiful  poem,  a  beautiful  chain  of 
reasoning,  the  beautiful  machinery  of  nature,  and  so  on. 
I  think  you  must  wait  till  you  find  some  animal  going 
beyond  itself  and  its  own  species,  in  its  admiration  of 
beauty,  before  you  compare  its  sense  of  beauty  with  that 
possessed  by  man.  What  is  the  next  point  ? 

Darwin.  " Belief  in  God"  my  Lord  ;  "  Heliyiun.    There 


FIFTH   DAY'S   SITTIXQ.  113 

is  no  evidence  that  man  was  aboriginally  endowed  with  the 
ennobling  belief  in  the  existence  of  an  Omnipotent  God. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  ample  evidence  derived,  not  from 
hasty  travellers,  but  from  men  who  have  long  resided  with 
savages,  that  numerous  races  have  existed,  and  still  exist, 
who  have  no  idea  of  one  or  more  gods,  and  who  have  no 
•words  in  their  languages  to  express  such  an  idea.  This 
question  is,  of  course,  wholly  distinct  from  that  higher  one, 
whether  there  exists  a  creator  and  ruler  of  the  universe  ; 
and  this  has  been  answered  in  the  affirmative  by  the  highest 
intellects  that  have  ever  lived."  (Vol.  i.  p.  65.) 

Homo.  In  what  Mr.  Darwin  has  just  said,  my  Lord,  he 
sets  aside  the  Bible  as  having  any  claim  whatever  to  be 
regarded  as,  in  any  sense,  a  revelation  from  God.  Yet,  if 
the  highest  intellects  that  ever  lived  have  affirmed  the 
existence  of  Go  i,  the  highest  intellects  that  have  had  the 
opportunity  of  investigating  the  question  have  affirmed  the 
Bible  to  be  his  Word.  We  are  not,  however,  going  to 
discuss  this  question.  But  I  wish  to  remark  that,  whether 
or  not  the  Bible  contain  a  revelation  from  God,  even  Mr. 
Darwin,  I  presume,  will  admit  that  it  contains  much  true 
history.  Now,  in  the  early  records  of  the  Jews,  we  see  a 
people  who,  unquestionably,  at  a  very  remote  period,  were 
"  endowed  with  the  ennobling  belief  in  the  existence  of  an 
Omnipotent  God,"  casting  this  belief  aside,  and  falling 
under  the  influence  of  the  impure  superstitions  of  the 
nations  that  surrounded  them.  It  is  well  known,  moreover, 
that,  with  a  pure  and  elevating  theism  in  their  most  ancient 
sacred  books,  the  Hindoos  rank  among  the  most  debased 
idolaters  in  the  world.  We  see  also,  in  cur  own  country, 
that  with  this  "ennobling  belief "  in  the  Divine  existence 
within  their  reach,  multitudes  practically  disregard  and 
reject  it.  I  make  these  remarks,  my  Lord,  to  show  that, 


114  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

if  there  be  races  of  men  so  degraded  that  they  have  no 
knowledge  of  God,  their  ignorance  arises,  far  more  pro- 
bably, from  their  remote  ancestors  having  lost  this  know- 
ledge, than  from  man  having  been  originally  destitute  of 
it.  I  beg  to  say,  further,  that  when  Mr.  Darwin  affirms 
there  is-  no  evidence  that  man  originally  possessed  this 
belief,  he  is,  as  usual,  taking  for  granted  what  he  ought 
first  to  prove. 

Lord  C.  There  can  be  no  doubt  thafmany  of  the  highest 
intellects  that  adorn  our  country  would  differ  most  de- 
cidedly from  Mr.  Darwin  in  his  opinion  on  this  question. 
But  is  it  necessary  for  us  to  debate  it  ? 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  does  not  debate  it.  He 
satisfies  himself  with  dogmatically  settling  it  in  favour  of 
his  own  side  of  the  argument.  Disbelieving,  if  not  the 
existence  of  God,  yet  the  intervention  of  God  in  human 
affairs,  and  maintaining  that  man  is  descended  from  an 
ape,  he  believes  also,  of  course,  that  when  man  emerged 
from  ape  he  was  a  savage.  "  Tne  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the 
universe,  whose  existence  has  been  affirmed  by  the  highest 
intellects  that  ever  lived,"  has  never  thought  fit,  according 
to  Mr.  Darwin,  to  reveal  himself  to  the  only  creature  on 
this  earth  capable,  in  some  measure,  of  comprehending 
Him.  Man  has,  all  unaided  and  uncared  for  by  the 
"  Omnipotent  God,"  struggled  by  his  own  efforts  into  the 
light  and  knowledge  he  now  possesses.  It  is,  moreover, 
altogether  uncertain  that  the  light  which  man  possesses 
on  "  God "  and  "  religion "  is  true  light,  or  that  his 
knowledge  on  these  subjects  is  based  on  reality.  Such 
is  the  conclusion  to  which  Darwinism  points  us,  my 
Lord! 

Ixini-ui.  Allow  me,  ray  Lord,  to  state  how  it  appears  to 
me  that  religion  has  come  to  exist  among  men. 


FIFTH   DAY'S   SITTING.  115 

Lord  C.  By  all  meaus,  Mr.  Darwin  ;  let  us  have  your 
views  on  this  point. 

Darwin.  "  If,"  my  Lord,  "  we  include  under  the  term 
*  religion '  the  belief  in  unseen  or  spiritual  agencies  .  .  . 
this  belief  seems  to  be  almost  universal  with  the  less 
civilized  races.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  comprehend  how  it 
arose.  As  soon  as  the  important  faculties  of  the  imagina- 
tion, wonder,  and  curiosity,  together  with  some  power  of 
reasoning,  had  become  partially  developed,  man  would 
naturally  have  craved  to  understand  what  was  passing 
around  him,  and  have  vaguely  speculated  on  his  own 
existence.  ...  It  is  probable  that  dreams  may  have  first 
given  rise  to  the  notion  of  spirits  ;  for  savages  do  not 
readily  distinguish  between  subjective  and  objective  im- 
pressions. When  a  savage  dreams,  the  figures  which  appear 
before  him  are  believed  to  have  come  from  a  distance  and 
to  stand  over  him  ;  or  'the  soul  of  the'  dreamer  goes  out 
on  its  travels,  and  comes  home  with  a  remembrance  of 
what  it  has  seen.'  But,  until  the  above-named  faculties  of 
imagination,  curiosity,  reason,  &c.,  had  been  fairly  well  de- 
veloped in  the  mind  of  man,  his  dreams  would  not  have 
led  him  to  believe  in  spirits  any  more  than  in  the  case  of  a 
dog.  .  .  .  The  belief  in  spiritual  agencies  would  easily  pass 
into  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  one  or  more  goJs.  For 
savages  would  naturally  attribute  to  spirits  the  same 
passions,  the  same  love  of  vengeance  or  simplest  form  of 
justice,  and  £ne  same  affections  which  they  themselves 
experienced."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  65-67.) 

Homo.  Let  us  suppose,  my  Lord,  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, that  such  religion  as  savages  possess  arose  among 
them  in  the  \\.Ty  which  Mr.  Darwin  suggests,  their  dreams 
having  had  mucn  to  do  with  it.  Will  he  now  explain  how 
it  has  happened  that  the  dreams  of  dogs  and  horses — for 


1  1C  HOMO   V.   DAK  WIN. 

he  tells  us  that  they  also  dream — have  not  resulted  in  their 
having  some  kind  of  religion  ?  For,  be  it  remembered,  my 
Lord,  that  Mr.  Darwin  is  now  endeavouring  to  prove  that 
the  fact  of  man  being  capable  of  religion  does  not  separate 
him  by  an  impassable  gulf  from  the  lower  animals.  Is 
there  evidence,  then,  that  any  of  the  lower  animals  are 
finding  their  way  across  the  gulf,  by  this  bridge  of  dreams  ? 

Lord  C.  The  point  at  present  in  debate,  Mr.  Darwin,  is 
not  how  religion  at  first  originated  among  savages,  but 
whether  the  fact  of  man's  capacity  for  religion  does  not 
show  him  to  be  possessed  of  a  nature  in  which  the  lower 
animals  do  not  share.  The  observations  you  have  just 
made  do  not  bear  on  this  point.  They  show,  however,  that 
a  belief  in  the  supernatural  is  present  in  savages,  which 
is  more  than  can  be  said  of  dogs  and  horses.  They, 
certainly,  neither  believe  in  the  supernatural,  nor  are 
capable  of  such  belief.  Hence,  religion  is  with  them  an 
impossibility. 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin,  my  Lord,  has  told  us  of  one  ape 
taking  a  first  step  in  the  formation  of  language,  and  of 
another  taking  a  first  step  in  architecture  ;  can  he  fiud,  or 
even  imagine,  one  taking  a  first  step  in  religion  ? 

Darwin.  "The  tendency  in  savages,"  my  Lord,  " to 
imagine  that  natural  objects  and  agencies  are  animated  by 
spiritual  or  living  essences,  is  perhaps  illustrated  by  a  little 
fact  which  I  once  noticed  :  My  dog,  a  full  grown  and  very 
sensible  animal,  was  lying  on  the  lawn  during  a  hot  and 
still  day  ;  but  at  a  little  distance  a  slight  breeze  occasionally 
moved  an  open  parasol,  which  would  have  been  wholly 
disregarded  by  the  dog  had  any  one  stood  near  it.  As  it 
•was,  every  time  that  the  parasol  slightly  moved,  the  dog 
growled  fiercely  and  barked.  He  must,  I  think,  have 
reasoned  to  hirr.F.clf  in  a  rapid  and  unconscious  manner, 


FIFTH   DAY'S   SITTING.  117 

that  movement,  without  any  apparent  cause,  indicated  the 
presence  of  some  strange  living  agent,  and  no  stranger  had 
a  right  to  be  on  his  territory."  (Vol.  i.  p.  67.) 

Lord  C.  The  fact  you  mention,  Mr.  Darwin,  though  in- 
terestiDg,  does  not  bear  on  the  question  before  us.  If  you 
could  sho*w  that  he  reasoned  himself  into  a  belief  of  the 
supernatural,  it  would  be  a  case  in  point.  Bat  why  should 
you  suppose  that  your  dog  "reasoned"  on  this  occasion  ? 
Might  he  not  simply  have  felt  as  if  the  parasol  itself, 
moving  without  any  apparent  cause,  were  some  "strange 
living  agent  ?  " 

Homo.  Will  your  Lordship  allow  me  to  quote  here  a 
passage  from  an  able  review  of  Mr.  Darwin's  book,  which 
recently  appeared  in  The  Times,  and  which  bears  on  the 
point  now  before  us : —  "  The  nearest  approach  to  reasoning 
which  Mr.  Darwin  can  adduce  is  furnished  in  two  analogous 
stories  respecting  dogs.  *  Mr.  Colquhoun  winged  two  wild 
ducks,  which  fell  on  the  opposite  side  of  a  stream  ;  his 
retriever  tried  to  bring  over  both  at  once,  but  could  not 
succeed  ;  she  then,  though  previously  never  known  to 
ruffle  a  feather,  deliberately  killed  one,  brought  over  the 
other,  and  returned  for  the  dead  bird.'  The  case  is  cer- 
tainly remarkable ;  but  it  appears  to  us  a  very  hasty 
conclusion  that  the  act  was  rational.  The  retriever  possesses 
the  instinct  of  not  permitting  a  bird  to  escape  as  well  as 
the  instinct  of  not  injuring  it,  and  her  act  would  seem 
simply  an  instance  of  one  instinct  overpowering  another. 
This  interpretation  is  strongly  confirmed  by  the  other 
story.  In  that  case  two  parti  idges  were  shot,  one  being 
killed,  the  other  wounded.  The  latter  ran  away,  and  was 
caught  by  the  retriever,  who,  on  her  return,  came  across  the 
dead  bird  ;  *  she  stopped,  evidently  greatly  puzzled,  and 
after  one  or  two  trials,  finding  she  could  not  take  it  up 


118  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

without  permitting  the  escape  of  the  winged  bird,  she  con 
sidered  a  moment,  and  then  deliberately  murdered  it  by 
giving  it  a  severe  crunch,  and  afterwards  brought  away 
both  together.  This  was  the  only  known  instance  of  her 
ever  having  wilfully  injured  any  game.'  '  Here/  says  Mr. 
Darwin,  *  we  have  reason,  though  not  quite  perfect,  fur  the 
retriever  might  have  brought  the  wounded  bird  first,  and 
then  returned  for  the  dead  one,  as  in  the  case  of  the  two 
wild  ducks.'  Precisely  so  ;  if  she  had  really  reasoned  she 
would  not  have  killed  the  duck.  But  two  instinctive 
impulses  were  working  in  her — one  impelling  her  to  bring 
both  birds,  the  other  impelling  her  not  to  let  either  bird 
escape  ;  and,  not  being  able  to  reconcile  the  two  by  means 
of  reason,  the  latter  instinct  overpowered  her  habit  of  not 
injuring  the  game.  It  is  not  by  such  instances  that  the 
result  of  a  wide  induction  respecting  the  difference  between 
the  faculties  of  men  and  brutes  can  be  overthrown.  We 
should  have  been,  indeed,  in  no  way  surprised  if  Mr.  Darwin 
had  been  able  to  adduce  cases  far  more  difficult  of  explanation. 
Nothing  is  better  recognized  than  that  inferior  faculties, 
when  acting  alone,  acquire  a  perfection  of  development 
which  enables  them  in  many  cases  to  act  even  more  effi- 
ciently ihan  higher  faculties.  A  blind  man  will  perceive  by 
the  mere  sense  of  touch  that  which  the  philosopher  could 
only  observe  by  the  aid  of  a  microscope  ;  and  a  dog,  by  his 
acute  sen^e  of  smell,  will  surpass  the  utmost  exertions  of 
human  sagacity  in  tracking  his  prey.  Consequently,  even 
if  it  could  be  shown  that  animals  perform  certain  actions 
which  men  could  only  perform  by  the  aid  of  reason,  it  would 
by  no  means  necessarily  follow  that  animals  perform  tin. -m 
by  its  aid.  It  would  be  perfectly  conceivable  that  their 
power  was  derived  from  the  development  of  a  lower  and 
diverse  faculty  to  an  extent  of  which  men  have  on 


FIFTH   DAY'S   SITTING*.  119 

experience.  Snch  a  consideration  is  alone  enongh  to  show 
that  the  question  needs  to  be  treated  with  infinitely  more 
care  and  research  than  Mr.  Darwin  has  thought  worth 
while  to  bestow  upon  it." 

Darwin.  "  I  have  to  say  yet  farther,"  my  Lord,  "  on  this 
subject,  that  the  feeling  of  religious  devotion  is  a  highly 
complex  one,  consisting  of  love,  complete  submission  to  an 
exalted  and  mysterious  superior,  a  strong  sense  of  de- 
pendence, fear,  reverence,  gratitude,  hope  for  the  future, 
and  perhaps  other  elements.  No  being  could  experience  so 
complex  an  emotion,  until  advanced  in  his  intellectual  and 
moral  faculties  to  at  least  a  moderately  high  level.  Never- 
theless, we  see  some  distinct  approach  to  this  state  of  mind 
in  the  deep  love  of  a  dog  for  his  master,  associated  with 
complete  submission,  some  fear,  and  perhaps  other  feelings. 
The  behaviour  of  a  dog,  when  returning  to  his  master  after 
an  absence,  and,  as  I  may  add,  of  a  monkey  to  his  beloved 
keeper,  is  widely  different  from  that  towards  their  fellows. 
In  the  latter  case  the  transports  of  joy  appear  to  be  some- 
what less,  and  the  sense  of  equality  is  shown  in  every 
action.  Professor  Braubach  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain  that 
a  dog  looks  on  his  master  as  on  a  god."  (Vol.  i.  p.  68.) 

Homo.  Which  would  imply,  my  Lord,  that  the  dog  has 
formed  the  idea  of  a  god.  If  Mr.  Darwin  could  show  this 
to  be  the  case,  it  would  afford  some  help  to  his  argument. 
But  though  he  quotes  this  professor's  language,  and  evi- 
dently would  gladly  endorse  it  if  he  could,  he  does  not 
venture  on  the  absurdity.  Professor  Braubach  should  bring 
out  a  dog's  catechism,  in  which,  in  reply  to  the  question, 
"  Who  made  you  ?"  the  creature  should  be  taught  to  reply, 
"  My  master  ! " 

Lord  C.  You  do  not,  Mr.  Darwin,  mention  regard  for 
truth,  purity,  and  rectitude,  as  minglin^  in  "the  highly 


120  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

complex  feeling  of  religious  devotion,"  of  which  yon  speak. 
Yet,  would  not  these  elements  also  have  a  place  in  it  ? 

Homo.  In  page  182,  my  Lord,  Mr.  Darwin  speaks  of 
"the  highest  form  of  religion — the  grand  idea  of  God 
hating  sin  and  loving  righteousness."  For  this  idea  he  is 
of  course  indebted  to  the  book  he  so  persistently  ignores  in 
discussing  this  question.  I  presume  he  omitted  this  idea 
in  the  description  he  has  just  given  of  religious  devotion, 
because  he  intended  to  exhibit  the  dog  as  showing  "  some 
distant  approach  "  to  a  religious  state  of  mind,  and  knew 
that  he  would  search  in  vain,  in  any  dog,  for  the  faintest 
shadow  of  hatred  to  sin  and  love  to  righteousness. 

Lord  C.  To  bring  in  this  idea  here  would  certainly 
encumber  his  argument.  Nevertheless,  it  must  be  brought 
in,  if  the  whole  case  is  to  be  before  us.  Do  you  object, 
Homo,  to  what  Mr.  Darwin  has  just  said  regarding  the 
dog — his  "deep  love  for  his  master,  associated  with  com- 
plete submission,  some  fear,  and  perhaps  other  feelings  ?  " 

Homo.  By  no  means,  my  Lord  ;  the  dog  is  a  most  noble 
animal,  and  Mr.  Darwin,  I  think,  has  spoken  quite  correctly 
regarding  him.  But  he  is  nothing  more  than  an  animal 
endowed  with  instincts  that  lead  him  to  attach  himself  to 
man.  He  acts  from  instinctive  impulses,  and  neither 
reflects  nor  reasons  on  his  conduct.  I  cannot  see  that  a  dog 
has  any  end  in  view  in  attaching  himself  to  man,  or  that 
he  knows  why  he  does  so.  I  need  not  say  to  your  Lordship 
that  the  feeling  of  religious  devotion,  even  as  Mr.  Darwin 
has  described  it,  can  arise  only  from  the  exercise  of  reason. 
Mr.  Darwin  himself  indeed  allows  this,  for  he  tells  us  that 
"no  being  could  experience  so  complex  an  emotion  until 
advanced  in  his  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  to  at  least 
a  moderately  high  level."  While,  in  the  feelings  of  a  dog 
towards  his  master,  thon,  we  see  merely  the  working  of 


FIFTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  121 

instinct;  in  the  feeling  of  religious  devotion  in  man,  the 
loftiest  reason  comes  into  play.  If  a  dog's  feelings  may 
thus,  in  the  case  before  us,  be  compared  to  a  man's,  it  is 
not  because  they  proceed  from  the  working  of  the  same,  or 
even  of  similar  faculties.  The  instinct,  or — if  you  will — 
the  reason  of  a  dog  is  no  more  identical  with  the  reason  of 
a  man  than  a  shadow  is  identical  with  the  substance  from 
which  it  is  thrown. 

Lord  G.  You  have  said  nothing,  Homo,  on  the  grand 
idea  of  hatred  to  sin  and  love  to  righteousness,  which  we 
proposed  to  bring  into  the  discussion  of  this  point. 

Homo.  I  beg  your  Lordship's  pardon  for  the  omission. 
Of  course  a  dog,  or  any  animal  whatever,  is  utterly  inca- 
pable either  of  understanding  or  feeling  the  power  of  this 
grand  idea.  A  dog's  attachment  to  his  master  is  altogether 
irrespective  of  either\sin  or  righteousness.  He  will  be  as 
much  attached  to  Bill  Sikes,  if  he  be  his  master,  as  to 
William  \Vilberforce.  As  to  a  dog  approaching  to  any- 
thing like  a  conception,  or  a  consciousness  of  a  pure  and 
righteous  God,  such  a  thing  should  not  even  be  named  ;  nor 
will  it  be  unless  by  men  who  have  a  stronger  tendency  down- 
ward towards  communion  with  the  brute  creation,  than  up 
towards  God. 

Lord  C.  Mr.  Darwin,  I  presume,  advances  nothing  more 
than  what  has  come  before  us  to  prove  that  the  capacity  of 
man  for  religion  does  not  separate  him  by  "  an  impassable 
barrier  from  all  the  lower  animals." 

Homo.  Nothing  more  that  I  am  aware  of,  my  Lord.  Hfs 
second  chapter  concludes  with  this  subject.  In  his  third 
chapter  he  discusses  the  moral  sen^e. 

Lord  C.  AVe  shall  now  hear-  what  he  has  to  say  regard- 
ing it. 

ix.  "  I  fully  subscribe,"  my  Lord,  "  to  the  judgment 

I 


i-2'2  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

of  those  writers  who  maintain  that,  of  all  the  differences 
between  man  and  the  lower  animals,  the  moral  sense  or 
conscience  is  by  far  the  most  important.  This  sense,  as 
Mackintosh  remarks,  '  has  a  rightful  supremacy  over  every 
other  principle  of  human  action  ;'  it  is  summed  up  in  that 
short  but  imperious  word  ought,  so  full  of  high  significance. 
It  is  the  most  noble  of  all  the  attributes  of  man,  leading 
him  without  a  moment's  hesitation  to  risk  his  life  for  that 
of  a  fellow  creature ;  or,  after  due  deliberation,  impelled 
simply  by  the  deep  feeling  of  right  or  duty,  to  sacrifice  it 
in  some  great  cause.  Immanuel  Kant  exclaims,  4  Duty  ! 
wondrous  thought,  that  workest  neither  by  fond  insinuation, 
flattery,  nor  by  any  threat,  but  merely  by  holding  up  thy 
naked  "  law  in  the  soul,"  and  so  extorting  for  thyself  always 
reverence,  if  not  always  obedience  ;  before  whom  all  appe- 
tites are  dumb,  however  secretly  they  rebel ;  whence  thy 
original  ?'"  (Vol.  i.  pp.  70,  71.) 

Lord  C.  I  heartily  assent  to  your  quotations  from  Mack- 
intosh and  Kant,  and  also  to  your  own  remark  that  the 
moral  sense  *'  is  summed  up  in  the  short  but  imperious 
word  ought ;"  but  do  you  find  anything  answering  to  the 
moral  sense  or  conscience  in  the  lower  animals  ? 

Darwin.  "  The  following  proposition,"  my  Lord,  "  seems 
to  me  in  a  high  degree  probable,  namely,  that  any  animal 
whatever,  endowed  with  well-marked  social  instincts,  would 
inevitably  acquire  a  moral  sense  or  conscience,  as  soon  as 
its  intellectual  powers  had  become  as  well  developed,  or 
aearly  as  well  developed,  as  in  man."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  71,  72.) 

Lord  C.  Cannot  jou  give  us  facts,  Mr.  Darwin,  instead 
merely  of  a  proposition  which  seems  to  you  in  a  high 
degree  probable  ?  Your  hypothesis  should  be  sustained  on 
something  more  substantial  than  probabilities — proba- 
bilities, moreover,  which  may  seem  such  only  to  yourself. 


FIFTH   DAY'S  SITTING.  123 

Homo.  Your  Lordship  doubtless  perceives  that,  in  order 
to  find  these  probabilities,  Mr.  Darwin  takes  it  for  granted 
that  the  intellectual  powers  of  an  animal  possessing  social 
instincts  may  become  "  as  well  developed,"  or  nearly  as  well 
developed,  "  as  they  are  in  man."  He  thus  seems  unable 
to  take  a  single  step  towards  proving  his  hypothesis  without 
taking  it  for  granted. 

Lord  C.  I  understand  you  then  to  admit,  Mr.  Darwin, 
that  a  moral  sense  or  conscience  is  impossible  unless  in  a 
creature  whose  intellectual  powers  are  at  least  nearly  as 
well  developed  as  man's. 

Darwin.  What  I  say,  my  Lord,  clearly  implies  this. 

Lord  C.  We  are  thrown  back,  then,  on  your  previous 
argument,  for  you  have  certainly  not  proved  that  any 
animal  possesses  intellectual  powers  capable  of  bein<*  de- 
veloped into  anything  approaching  to  equality  with  those 
of  man. 

Homo.  Your  Lordship  is  perfectly  correct.  Mr.  Darwin 
has  clearly  put  himself  out  of  court  on  this  question  by 
admitting — what,  indeed,  he  cannot  help  admitting — that  a 
moral  sense  is  impossible  without  human  reason.  But  it 
may  help  to  bring  this  case  to  a  more  satisfactory  settle- 
ment if  your  Lordship  will  listen  while  Mr.  Darwin  states 
the  process  by  which  he  supposes  animals  may  acquire  a 
moral  sense,  and  while  he  mentions  his  views  regarding  the- 
nature  of  the  moral  sense. 

Lord  C.  I  am  quite  ready  to  hear  what  Mr.  Darwin  has 
to  say  on  these  points. 

Darwin.  What  I  have  to  say,  my  Lord,  is  this,  "Any 
animal  whatever,  endowed  with  well-marked  social  in- 
stincts, would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral  sense  or  con- 
science,  as  soon  as  its  intellectual  powers  had  become  as 
well  developed,  or  nearly  as  well  developed,  as  in  man. 

I  2 


124  HOMO  r.   DAK  WIN. 

For,  Firstly,  the   social  instincts  lead  an  animal  to  take 
pleasure  in  the  society  of  its  fellows,  to  feel  a  certain  amount 
of  sympathy  with  them,  and  to  perform  various  services  for 
them.    The  services  may  be  of  a  definite  and  evidently 
instinctive  nature  ;  or  there  may  be  only  a  wish  and  readi- 
ness, as  with  most  of  the  higher  social  animals,  to  aid  their 
fellows  in  certain  general  ways.     But  theso  feelings  and 
services  are  by  no  means  extended  to  all  the  individual  of 
the  same  species,  only  to  those  of  the  same  association, 
Secondly,   as   soon   as  the  mental    faculties  had    become 
highly  developed,  images  of  all  past  actions  and  motives 
would  be  incessantly  passing  through   the  brain  of  each 
individual ;  and  that  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  which  in- 
variably results,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  from  an  unsatisfied 
instinct,  would  arise,  as  often  as  it  was  perceived  that  the 
enduring  and  always  present  social  instinct  had  yielded  to 
some   other  instinct,   at   the   time   stronger,   but  neither 
enduring  in  its  nature,  nor  leaving  behind  it  a  very  vivid 
impression.     It  is  clear  that  many  instinctive  desires,  such 
as  that  of  hunger,  are  in  their  nature  ol  short  duration  ; 
and  after  being  satisfied  are  not  readily  or  vividly  recalled, 
Thirdly,  after  the  power  of  language  had  been  acquired, 
and  the  wishes  of  the  members  of  the  same  community 
could  be   distinctly  expressed,  the  common  opinion,  how 
each  member   ought  to  act   for   the   public   good,  would 
naturally  become  to  a  large  extent  the  guide  to  action. 
But  the  social  instincts  would  still  give  the  impulse  to  act 
for  the  good  of  the  community,  this  impulse  being  strength- 
ened,  directed,  and  sometimes  even  deflected   by  public 
opinion,  the  power  of  uhirh  rests,  as  we  shall  presently 
§ee,  on  instinctive  sympathy.    Laslltj,  habit  in  the  indi- 
vidual would  ultimately  play   a  very  important  part  in 
guiding   the    conduct   of   each    member ;    for   the    social 


FIITH  DAY'S  SITTIXG.  12.5 

instincts  and  impulses,  like  all  other  instincts,  would  be 
greatly  strengthened  by  habit,  as  would  obedience  to  the 
wishes  and  judgment  of  the  community."  (Vol.  i.  pp. 
71,  73.) 

LordC.  And  in  this  way  you  imagine  that  from  irrational 
and  irresponsible  brutes  were  developed  rational,  thought- 
ful, and  responsible  men.  But  all  this  is  mere  supposition, 
without  even  a  tittle  of  evidence  to  sustain  it.  It  would 
be  more  to  the  purpose  if  you  could  refer  us  to  any  species 
of  animals  which  is  passing  through  the  process  you 
describe.  Can  you  point  to  any  instance,  among  the  lower 
animals,  in  which  a  moral  sense  or  conscience  is  now  being 
developed  ? 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  cannot  do  that,  my  Lord.  "The 
common  rat,"  to  which  he  has  referred  as  having  had  "  all 
its  faculties  habitually  exercised  "  through  man,  does  not 
serve  him  here  ;  yet,  I  believe  it  is  a  social  animal.  No 
ape,  nor  monkey  of  any  kind,  gives  the  least  sign  of 
advancement  in  this  pathway  to  humanity,  which  Mr. 
Darwin  has  sketched  for  them.  Even  the  dog,  though,  as 
Professor  Braubach  maintains,  he  is  so  advanced  in  intellect 
that  "  he  looks  on  his  master  as  on  a  god,"  refuses  his  help 
on  this  subject.  In  vain  would  Mr.  Darwin  lecture  him  on 
conscience  and  the  moral  sense.  All  that  the  poor  brute 
could  do  would  be  to  look  interested  and  wag  his  tail, 
pleased  at  the  notice  taken  of  him,  and  perhaps  wondering 
what  it  meant — for,  as  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us,  "  all  animals 
feel  wonder  " — but  not  one  step  nearer  to  the  possession  of  a 
conscience  or  moral  sense  would  he  advance.  Let  Mr. 
Darwin  try  the  experiment  even  with  that  dog  of  hig, 
which  "growled  fiercely  and  barked"  every  time  that 
the  open  parasol  was  slightly  moved  by  the  wind,  "  reason- 
ing to  himpolf,  in  a  ra»>id  and  unconscious  manner  that 


126  HOMO   V.   DAUW1N. 

movement,  without  any  apparent  cause,  indicated  the  pre- 
sence of  some  strange  living  agent,  who  had  no  right  to 
be  on  his  territory,"  thus  arriving  almost  at  a  conception 
of  the  supernatural — let  Mr.  Darwin,  I  say,  try  the  ex- 
periment even  with  this  "  very  sensible  animal,"  and  he 
will  find  it  vain.* 

Darwin.  "It  may  be  wel  first  to  premise,"  my  Lord, 
"  that  I  do  not  wish  to  maintain  that  any  strictly  social 
animal,  if  its  intellectual  faculties  were  to  become  as  active 
and  as  highly  developed  as  in  man,  would  acquire  exactly 
the  same  moral  sense  as  ours.  In  the  same  manner  as 
various  animals  have  some  sense  of  beauty,  though  they 
admire  widely  different  objects,  so  they  might  have  a  sense 
of  right  and  wrong,  though  led  by  it  to  follow  widely 
different  lines  of  conduct.  If,  for  instance,  to  take  an 
extreme  case,  men  were  reared  under  precisely  the  same 
conditions  as  hive-bees,  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that 
our  unmarried  females  would,  like  the  worker-bees,  think 
it  a  sacred  duty  to  kill  their  brothers,  and  mothers  would 
strive  to  kill  their  fertile  daughters,  and  no  one  would 
think  of  interfering.  Nevertheless,  the  bee,  or  any  other 
social  animal,  would,  in  our  supposed  case,  gain,  as  it 
appears  to  me,  some  feeling  of  right  or  wrong,  or  con- 
science. For  each  individual  would  have  an  inward  sense 
of  possessing  certain  stronger  or  more  enduring  instincts, 
and  others  less  strong  or  enduring,  so  that  there  would 
often  be  a  struggle,  which  impulse  should  be  followed,  and 
gatisfaction  or  dissatisfaction  would  be  felt,  us  past  im- 
pressions were  compared  during  their  incessant  passa^; 
through  the  mind.  In  this  case  an  inward  monitor  would 
tell  the  animal  that  it  would  have  been  better  to  have  fol- 
lowed the  one  impulse  rather  than  the  other."  (Vol.  i.  p.  73.) 

Lord  C.  You  seem  now,  Mr.  Darwin,  to  t>tke  a  different 


FIFTH   DAY'S   BITTING.  127 

view  of  morality  from  what  you  did  at  the  outset.  You 
have  but  just  spoken  of  conscience  as  "  the  most  noble  of 
all  the  attributes  of  man,  leading  him,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  to  risk  his  life  for  that  of  a  fellow  creature." 
Now  you  suppose  it  possible  that  sisters  might  be  impelled 
by  conscience  to  murder  their  brothers,  and  mothers  their 
daughters  ! 

Darwin.  This  doubtless  is  "  an  extreme  case,"  my  Lord, 
but,  if  men  were  reared  under  precisely  the  same  con- 
ditions as  hive-bees,  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the 
members  of  the  same  family  would  think  it  a  sacred  duty 
to  kill  one  another,  and  that  no  one  would  think  of 
interfering. 

Lord  C.  You  reason  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner,  Mr. 
Darwin.  You  suppose  an  impossible  case,  and  you  expound 
to  us  a  system  of  morals  founded  on  this  impossible  case, 
which  morals  are  not  morals  at  all,  but  acts  arising  from 
instinctive  impulses,  and  followed  by  different  feelings 
as  the  animal  compares  the  impressions  that  pass  through 
its  mind  one  with  another.  But  all  this  is  entirely 
imaginary. 

Homo.  I  call  it  reasoning  with  the  imagination,  my 
Lord,  an  operation  which  Mr.  Darwin  performs  with  great 
facility.  But,  in  his  supposed  case,  the  development  goes 
the  wrong  way,  for  it  makes  man  develop  into  a  bee, 
instead  of  making  the  bee  develop  into  a  man.  Mr. 
Darwin  might  suppose  other  cases  quite  as  probable  as  the 
one  before  us.  He  might  suppose  man  reared  under  pre- 
cisely'the  same  conditions  as  rooks,  or  jackdaws,  or 
starlings  ;  or  as  dogs,  horse?,  sheep,  or  rabbits — all  of 
which  animals  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  as  social  in  their 
habits — and  he  might  exhibit  to  us  a  new  system  of  morals 
as  springing  from  each  case.  We  should  have  .thus 


12S  HOMO    V.    DAIIWIX. 

rook- morality,  and  rabbit- morality,  and  horse  and  dog- 
morality,  &c.,  as  well  as  bee-morality  and  man-morality. 

Lard  C.  Such  supposed  cases  do  not  throw  one  spark  of 
light  on  the  question  before  us — Can  any  animal  whatever 
acquire  a  moral  sense  or  conscience  ? 

ffonto.  Very  true,  my  Lord  ;  but  they  illustrate  Mr. 
Darwin's  views  on  morals.  There  is  another  passage  in  his 
work  bearing  on  this  subject,  to  which  I  must  beg  your 
Lordship's  attention.  At  page  168,  treating  of  "Natural 
Selection  as  affecting  Civilized  Nations,"  he  says,  "  With 
savages  the  weak  in  body  or  mind  are  soon  eliminaterl, 
and  those  that  survive  commonly  exhibit  a  vigorous  state 
of  health.  We  civilized  men,  on  the  other  hand,  do  our 
utmost  to  check  the  process  of  elimination  ;  we  build 
asylums  for  the  imbecile,  the  maimed,  and  the  sick  ;  we 
institute  poor  laws,  and  our  medical  men  exert  their  utmost 
skill  to  save  the  life  of  every  one  to  the  last  moment. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  vaccination  has  preserved 
thousands,  who  from  a  weak  constitution  would  formerly 
have  succumbed  to  small-pox.  Thus  the  \\eak  members  of 
civilized  societies  propagate  their  kind.  Xo  one  who  has 
attended  to  the  breeding  of  domestic  animals  will  douU 
that  this  must  be  highly  injurious  to  the  race  of  man.  It 
is  surprising  how  soon  a  want  of  care,  or  care  wrongly 
directed,  leads  to  the  degeneration  of  a  domestic  race  ;  but 
excepting  in  the  case  of  man  himself,  hardly  any  one  is  BO 
ignorant  as  to  allow  his  worst  animals  to  breed." 

Lord  C.  Does  Mr.  Darwin  mean  to  say  then  that,  in 
building  asylums  for  the  imbecile,  the  maimed,  the  sick; 
in^iitutirig  poor  laws;  enforcing  vaccination — endeavouring 
thus  to  prolong  the  lives  of  our  fellow-creatures — we  are 
directing  our  care  wrongly,  and  causing  a  degeneration  of 
the  race  of  man  ? 


FIFTH   DAY'S  SITTCtO.  129 

Homo.  I  have  read  what  Mr.  Darwin  says,  and  must 
leave  your  Lordship  to  form  jour  own  judgment  regard- 
ing it. 

Lord  C.  Why,  had  it  not  been  for  vaccination,  we  our- 
belves  might  have  fallen  victims  to  small-pox ! 

Homo.  Mr.  Darwin  might,  most  assuredly,  my  Lord. 
May  I  say  that  I  heard  it  stated  lately  that  Mr.  Darwin  had 
been  prevented  from  attending  to  some  public  engagement 
by  ill  health  ?  Probably  that  was  not  the  first  time  he  had 
suffered  in  this  way.  Now,  had  the  process  of  elimination 
been  adopted  in  his  own  case,  his  work  on  "  The  descent  of 
man,''  might  never  have  been  written,  and  we  should  not 
now  be  engaged  in  these  proceedings. 

Lord  C.  I  think,  Homo,  you  are  becoming  a  little  too 
personal  in  making  such  a  remark.  It  may  be  questioned, 
however,  whether,  even  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  it 
would  be  wise  to  disregard  the  weak  and  feeble,  or  have 
them  put  cut  of  the,  way.  Xewton  himself  was  born  pre- 
maturely, and  as  an  infant,  was  of  extremely  diminutive 
size.  Intellectual  energy  and  physical  strength  do  not 
cecessarily  go  together. 

Darwin.  My  Lord,  Homo  ought  in  fairness  to  state  what 
follows.  I  add  that,  "  We  could  not  check  our  sympathy, 
if  so  urged  by  hard  reason,  without  deterioration  in  the 
noblest  part  of  our  nature.  The  surgeon  may  harden 
himself  whilst  performing  an  operation,  for  he  knows  that 
lie  is  acting  for  the  good  of  his  patient ;  but  if  we  were 
intentionally  to  neglect  the  weak  and  helpless,  it  could 
only  be  for  a  contingent  benefit,  with  a  certain  and  great 
present  evil.  Hence  we  must  bear  without  complaining 
the  undoubtedly  bad  effects  of  the  weak  surviving  ana 
propagating  their  kind."  (Vol.  i.  pp.  168,  169.) 
Homo.  Would  these  passages  from  Mr.  Darwin's  work, 


130  HOMO  V.   DARWIX. 

my  Lord,  be  suitable  for  a  lesson-book  to  be  introduced 
into  our  National  Schools  ?  "Would  it  help  to  educate 
the  rising  race  in  morals,  were  they  led  to  consider  the 
case  in  which  it  might  be  a  sacred  duty  with  sisters  to  kill 
their  brothers  ?  Would  it  also  tend  to  strengthen  their 
compassion  for  the  maimed,  the  suffering,  and  the  sick, 
were  they  taught  that,  though  their  care  would  be  wrongly 
directed,  if  directed  towards  them,  and  would  tend  to  the 
deterioration  of  the  race,  yet  they  could  not  check  their 
feelings  of  sympathy  towards  them  without  deterioration  in 
the  noblest  part  of  their  nature  ?  Would  such  lessons  in 
morals,  my  Lord,  given  to  the  rising  generation,  tend  to 
their  advancement  and  elevation  ? 

Lord  C.  I  fear  it  would  not  be  easy  to  induce  any  English 
constituency  to  elect  Mr.  Darwin  to  the  Sjhool  Board. 

Homo.  Especially,  my  Lord,  if,  in  his  address  to  the 
electors,  he  were  to  quote  these  passages  as  setting  forth 
his  views  on  conscience  and  morals.  The  common  sense 
of  Englishmen  would  revolt  from  them.  Mr.  Darwin,  my 
Lord,  has  more  faith  in  "  Natural  Selection,"  and  in  the 
process  of  "  Elimination,"  by  which  the  weak  in  body  and 
mind  are  gradually  killed  off — he  has  more  faith  in  these 
processes  as  tending  to  human  advancement  than  he  has  in 
the  "  Omnipotent  God,"  whom  he  tells  us  it  is  "  ennobling  " 
to  believe  in. 

Lord  C.  Are  you  not  rather  hard  on  Mr.  Darwin  in 
saying  so  ?  '"•'•-/ 

Homo.  I  think  not,  my  Lord.  The  whole  tendency 
of  his  book  is  to  eliminate  the  Divine  Being  from  among 
his  works,  and  to  set  up  Natural  Selection  in  his  place. 
According  to  Mr.  Darwin,  the  " Omnipotent  God"  does 
nothing,  except,  perhaps,  create  at  first.  He  then  withdraws 
from  the  universe,  and,  for  aught  that  appears,  goes  to 


FIFTH  DAY'S   SITTING.  131 

sleep  like  the  Brahma  of  the  Hindoos.  Meanwhile,  Natural 
Selection,  assisted  by  Sexual  Selection  and  Evolution,  steps 
in  and  does  the  work.  We  have  thus  to  do,  not  with  the 
"  Omnipotent  God,"  but  with  the  inferior  deities  discovered 
by  Mr.  Darwin,  of  whose  existence  he  tells  us  in  his  book. 
It  is  they  alone  who  are  to  be  our  fear  and  our  dread. 

Darwin.  I  have  said,  my  Lord,  that  we  could  not  check 
the  feelings  of  sympathy  towards  the  weak  and  helpless 
without  deterioration  in  the  noblest  part  of  our  nature. 

Homo.  Very  true,  my  Lord,  he  has  said  so  ;  but  what  are 
our  sympathies,  according  to  him,  but  merely  feelings 
which  have  arisen  from  the  process  of  Natural  Selection, 
and  which,  if  we  had  been  reared  as  hive-bees,  would  never 
have  existed  in  us.  And  does  he  not  plainly  tell  us  our 
sympathies  are  wrongly  directed,  and  tend  to  the  degenera- 
tion of  the  race,  when  bestowed  on  the  objects  that  most 
need  them  ?  It  had  thus  been  better  for  our  race,  on  Mr. 
Darwin's  principles,  that  we  had  had  no  such  sympathies  as 
Natural  Selection  has  unfortunately  given  us. 

Darwin.  I  have  also  spoken,  my  Lord,  of  "the  grand 
idea  of  God  hating  sin  and  loving  righteousness." 

Homo.  Very  true,  he  has,  my  Lord  ;  but  then,  on  his 
hypothesis,  righteousness  is  not  a  great,  living,  necessary 
reality,  based  on  the  nature  of  God,  and  therefore  un- 
changeable and  enduring  as  God  himself ;  but  a  mere 
accidental  and  unstable  quality,  generated  by  the  social  in- 
stincts of  brutes,  and  which  might  have  been  quite  different 
from  what  it  happens  to  be,  and  led  to  widely  different, 
and  even  opposite  lines  of  conduct,  and  yet  been  righteous- 
ness still.  I  do  not  see,  for  my  part,  how  one  can  believe 
in  an  "  Omnipotent  God,"  the  "  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the 
universe,"  and  in  this  God  as  "hating  sin  and  loving 
righteousness,"  and  yet  fail  to  see  that  the  moral  sense  and 


132  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

conscience,  in  snch  a  creature  as  man,  when  rightly 
exercised,  must  have  reference  to  God's  will. 

Lord  C.  Will  Homo  inform  me  if  he  has  now  anything 
farther  to  advance  ? 

Homo.  Your  Lordship  has  now  before  you  the  whole  of 
the  particulars  of  the  libel  of  which  I  complain.  After 
the  patient  attention  given  to  those  particulars  by  your 
Lordship,  I  shall  not  attempt  a  review  of  the  case.  I  leave 
it  with  your  Lordship,  satisfied  that  I  shall  be  indemnified, 
so  far  as  is  in  your  Lordship's  power,  for  the  injury  inflicted 
on  me  by  the  publication  of  the  Defendant's  book.  I  may 
observe,  however,  that  Mr.  Darwin's  speculations  are  in- 
jurious  also  in  this  way — they  lead  others  who  are  dissatisfied 
with  them  into  speculations  of  their  own  quite  as  wild  and 
visionary.  Some  scientific  gentlemen  are  now  actually  en- 
gaged in  trying  to  create  life  !  Other  men  of  science  are 
not  so  daring  in  their  experiments,  but  they  are  quite  as 
audacious  in  their  suggestions.  They  tell  us  that  life  may 
have  been  imported  into  this  planet  on  a  meteoric  stone ! 
I  suppose,  my  Lord,  that  after  some  more  time  has  been 
vainly  expended  in  searching  for  the  missing  links  of  Evo- 
lution, we  shall  be  hearing  that  the  first  human  pair  were 
charioted  into  our  world  on  a  shooting  star  ! 

Lord  C.  Speculations  on  the  mystery  of  life  are  generally 
BO  absurd  that  they  speedily  refute  themselves.  It  is  indeed 
possible  that  germs  of  life  may  have  been  conveyed  in 
meteoric  stones,  but  that  life  in  our  world  was  thus  origin- 
ated can  never  be  proved.  Besides,  such  a  supposition 
dees  not  solve  the  mystery  of  life  ;  it  but  removes  it  one 
step  back,  and  renders  it  more  than  ever  difficult  for  us  to 
deal  with.  If  life  was  not  originated  in  our  world,  but 
merely  imported  into  it,  our  naturalists  would  require  to 
vibit  the  world  where  it  fir  t  ?>]>;  ''"?•<•  tlu-y  could  he 


FIFTH   DAY'S  SITTING.  133 

competent  for  dealing  satisfactorily  with  the  subject.  Yet, 
though  such  speculations  are  unsatisfactory,  probably,  it 
will  only  be  through  speculation  and  experiment  that  the 
truth  will  be  reached  at  last.  The  human  mind  seeks  after 
unity  in  creation — tries  to  find  some  definite  point  from 
which  all  has  sprung.  My  own  belief  is  that  the  unity  and 
starting-point  of  creation  will  be  sought  after  in  vain  till 
they  are  sought  for  in  God.  To  my  mind,  there  is  more 
light  and  wisdom  in  those  grand  old  words  of  the  Psalmist, 
"  With  Thee  is  the  fountain  of  life  " — "  Thou  sendest  forth 
Thy  Spirit,  they  are  created  :  Thou  renewest  the  face  of  the 
earth  " — than  there  is  in  all  such  speculations  of  philoso- 
phers. I  will  deliver  my  judgment  at  our  sitting  to-morrow. 


SIXTH    DAY'S    SITTING. 

THE  JUDGMENT  OF  LORD  C. 

Having  carefully  considered  the  evidence  that  has  been 
adduced,  and  having  also  carefully  examined  Mr.  Darwin's 
book,  I  can  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  his 
hypothesis  does  not  account  for  the  existence  of  man. 
According  to  that  hypothesis  we  are  to  believe  that  all  the 
yaricd  forms  of  animal  life  existing  on  this  earth  have  been 
produced  by  the  action  of  laws  now  in  operation  around  us, 
from  some  one,  or  from  a  few,  primary  forms.  We  are  to 
believe  that,  by  minute  variations  of  this  form  or  forms — 
which  variations  went  on  accumulating,  generation  after 
generation,  through  a  period  of  time  incalculably  long — 
one  species  of  creature  after  another  has  been  produced  ; 
that  the  larvae  of  ascidians  developed  into  fish  ;  fish  into 
amphibians  ;  amphibians  into  reptiles  and  birds  ;  these 
into  mammals,  including  the  Old  World  monkeys,  through 
which  the  climax  was  at  last  reached  in  man. 

Such  hypotheses  are  not  new.  They  are  as  old  as  the 
history  of  human  thought.  In  ancient  times  men  of  specu- 
lative tendencies  discussed  the  origin  of  the  universe  and 
of  man;  and  development  and  evolution,  in  one  form  or 
another,  were  employed  to  account  for  what  they  saw  around 
them.  In  more  recent  times  Lamarck  supposed  species  to 
have  been  produced  by  the  operation  on  organized  creatures 
of  the  conditions  and  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
placed— the  giraffe,  for  example,  as  alluded  to  by  Homo, 


SIXTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  135 

acquiring  its  long  neck,  and  other  corresponding  peculi- 
arities of  its  frame,  from  having  to  stretch  its  body  in  order 
to  feed  on  the  lofty  branches  of  trees  ;  and  monkeys,  I 
presume,  acquiring  their  powers  of  climbing  by  having  to 
ascend  still  higher  to  find  the  fruit.  To  pass  over  Lord 
Monboddo's  opinions  on  the  origin  of  man,  Mr.  Darwin's 
own  grandfather,  Dr.  Erasmus  Darwin,  is  known  to  have 
entertained  somewhat  similar  views.  Mr.  Darwin  has  ad- 
vanced on  these  ideas  by  introducing  Natural  Selection  as 
the  primary  modifying  agent.  Starting  from  the  position 
of  Malthus,  with  regard  to  man,  Mr.  Darwin  maintains 
that  many  more  living  creatures  are  produced  on  this  earth 
than  can  possibly  survive.  It  is  well  known,  moreover, 
that,  by  what  may  be  called  the  law  of  variation,  each 
living  creature  produced  differs,  to  some  extent,  from  every 
other  of  its  kind.  Xo  two  human  beings  are  exactly  alike, 
and  these  variations  extend,  not  only  to  the  features,  but 
every  separate  member  and  portion  of  the  frame.  So  it  is 
with  the  lower  animals.  Mr.  Darwin  supposes  that  those 
individuals,  in  which  the  variations  are  of  a  favourable 
character,  will  be  more  vigorous,  or,  at  least,  more  fit  for 
the  conditions  in  which  they  are  placed  ;  and  that,  conse- 
quently, in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  their  own  kind, 
with  other  animals,  and  with  external  circumstance?,  they 
will  survive  in  greater  numbers,  and  that,  by  the  laws  of 
inheritance,  they  will  transmit  their  peculiarities  to  their 
offspring  ;  and  that  thus  the  struggle  for  existence,  and 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  being  continually  renewed,  by  the 
gradual  accumulation  of  favourable  peculiarities,  through 
numerous  generations,  separate  and  distinct  species  are 
eventually  produced. 

The  lengthened  time — 3,000  years  at  least — during  which 
COFmologieal  speculations  have  been  cherished,  has  given 


136  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

ample  opportunity  for  testing  them  ;  and  had  the  develop- 
ment hypothesis  been  based  on  fact,  and  supported  by 
observation  and  experience,  it  must  long,  ere  now,  in  some 
form  or  other,  have  found  its  way  to  the  general  belief  of 
mankind.  Within  a  much  shorter  period — 300  years  instead 
of  3,000 — such  theories  as  those  of  gravitation,  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood,  the  influence  of  the  moon  on  the  tides, 
have  established  themselves  in  the  convictions  of  all  persons 
of  intelligence.  No  views  put  forth  on  Evolution,  however, 
have  gained  such  acceptance,  and  the  idea  is  entertained 
only  by  some  men  of  speculative  mind,  through  the  opera- 
tion of  tendencies  characteristic  of  the  present  age.  These 
facts  I  take  as,  at  least,  primd  facie  evidence  that  the 
basis  of  proof  is  not  only  insufficient,  but  unsatisfactory  so 
far  as  it  goes. 

That  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  rests  on  no  stable  basis  is 
shown,  moreover,  by  the  fact  that  he  has  himself,  oftener 
than  once,  shifted  its  supports.  In  his  earlier  works, 
Natural  Selection  was  the  all-sufficient  power  by  which 
everything  was  accomplished.  Through  the  wide  field  of 
organized  existence,  from  its  origin,  myriads  of  ages  ago, 
until  now,  Mr.  Darwin  could  see  no  power  in  operation  but 
that  of  Natural  Selection.  Not  only  were  Divine  wisdom 
and  purpose  unrecognized — except,  indeed,  that  God  was 
supposed  to  have  at  first  "  breathed  life  into  a  few  forms 
or  into  one  " — but  all  other  laws  and  powers  whatever  were 
put  in  abeyance.  Natural  Selection  was  the  one  presiding 
Deity  in  the  world  of  animated  and  organic  existence. 

Mr.  Darwin  now  acknowledges  himself  to  have  been 
mistaken.  "  I  probably  attributed  too  much  (he  says)  to 
the  action  of  Natural  Si-1-rtion,  or 'the  survival  of  the 
fittest;"  and  he,  therefore,  now  brings  in  ''Sexual  Selection," 
with  "  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  organism  itself," 


SIXTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  137 

aiH  also  "unknown  agencies,"  as  playing  an  important  part 
in  the  production  of  the  changes  for  which  he  formerly 
maiatained  that  Natural  Selection  alone  was  sufficient  to 
account.  Thus,  as  Mr.  Darwin's  knowledge  of  the  world 
of  animated  nature  increases,  so  does  his  consciousness  of 
ignorance  as  to  the  powers  and  processes  working  in  con- 
nection with  it.  He  finds  life  to  be  a  greater  mystery  than 
ever.  After  the  researches  of  a  lifetime,  he  finds  it  obsti- 
nately refusing  to  reveal  itself  to  him,  and  ever  retreating 
farther  and  farther  from  his  gaze.  And  thus  he  comes  to 
learn,  what  all  his  predecessors  have  learned,  and  what, 
most  probably,  his  contemporaries  also  will  have  to  learn — 
that  there  are  powers  and  agencies  at  work  in  connection 
with  life  which  baffle  the  keenest  pursuit,  and  that  there 
is  something  in  "the  nature  and  constitution"  of  every 
living  creature  which  we  cannot  comprehend.  The  acknow- 
ledged mystery  which  thus  veils  life,  in  its  nature  and  origin, 
from  human  research,  should  induce  modesty  in  those 
whose  studies  lead  them  to  consider  it,  and  restrain 
them  from  the  formation  of  rash  and  vain  hypotheses. 

Taking  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis,  however,  as  it  is  now 
presented  to  us,  it  is  confessedly  destitute  of  anything  like 
proof.  Professor  Huxley,  with  assuredly  no  bias  against 
it,  yet  admits  that  he  can  point  to  no  "  group  of  animals, 
having  all  the  characters  exhibited  by  species  in  nature, 
that  has  ever  been  originated  by  Selection,  whether  natural 
or  artificial ;"  and  Mr.  Darwin  himself  can  give  us  no  facts 
that  prove  even  the  possibility  of  the  evolution  for  which 
he  contends.  History  and  the  experience  of  living  men 
are  equally  appealed  to  in  vain  for  help  on  this  subject. 
Yet,  if  this  process  of  "  Selection "  be  one  which,  as  Mr. 
Darwin  contends,  is  ever  going  on  in  nature,  it  might  reason- 
ably be  expected  that  some  unmistakeable  phenomena  in 

K 


138  HOA10    V.   DARWIN. 

connection  with  it  would,  some  time  or  other,  have  forced 
themselves  on  the  observation  of  mankind.  It  is  not  \ At- 
tended, however,  that  anything  like  this  has  ever  occurred 
and  when  this  consideration  is  adduced  as  tending  to  dib- 
prove  the  hypothesis,  refuge  is  always  sought  from  it  in  the 
enormous  periods  of  time  requisite  for  the  formation  of  new 
species. 

There  is  one  consideration  which,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
has  not  been  urged  in  connection  with  this  branch  of 
the  argument.  Why  are  enormous  periods  of  time  re- 
quired for  the  production  of  new  species,  but  that  there 
may  be  numerous  successive  generations,  each  of  which  may 
be  supposed  to  have  advanced  on  its  predecessors  ?  Now 
it  is  clear  that,  in  the  case  of  numerous  animals,  the  period 
of  time  required  for  this  purpose  would  be  much  less  than  in 
the  case  of  man.  We  may  suppose  that  three  generations 
of  men  are  produced  in  a  century.  This  would  give  ninety 
generations  in  3,000  years,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the 
historic  period  in  connection  with  this  subject.  Bat,  within 
the  same  period,  we  must  have  had  not  less  than  3,000 
generations  of  those  numerous  species  of  creatures  which 
produce  a  fresh  progeny  every  year,  or  even  oftener  than 
that.  There  have  thus  been  3,000  successive  generations 
of  many  of  the  lower  animals  within  a  period  during  which 
men  may  have  been  expected  to  observe  and  record  any 
remarkable  changes  occurring  among  them.  What,  then, 
is  the  sum  of  the  changes  which  Mr.  Darwin  is  able  to  point 
to  within  the  historic  period  as  tending  to  prove  his 
hypothesis  ?  It  amounts  absolutely  to  nothing  !  Yet  Mr. 
Darwin  tel's  us  that  Natural  Si-lrrtion  is  a  kind  of  god  that 
never  slumbers  nor  sleeps  ;  that  scrutinizes  everything;  is 
ever  selecting  what  is  useful  and  profitable,  in  animal 
existence,  and  preserving  it,  that  it  may  be  transmitted  to 


SIXTH    DAY  S   SITTING,  139 

future  generations";  and  that,  through  these  accumulated 
and  inherited  useful  variations  in  animal  life,  new  species 
are  developed. 

Take  the  case,  then,  of  any  species  of  animal  which  pro- 
duces young  within  a  year  of  its  birth.  We  have  references 
in  the  writings  of  ancient  naturalists  to  many  of  them. 
We  have  pictures  of  them  on  ancient  monuments.  We  find 
skeletons  of  them  in  ancient  tombs,  and  in  mounds  and 
caves.  There  are  thus  many  animals  living  now  which  can 
be  compared  with  their  progenitors  of  the  3,000th  genera- 
tion  back.  Can  Mr.  Darwin  show,  then,  in  the  case  of 
any  one  of  them,  that,  by  successive  variations  accumulated 
during  3,000  generations,  it  has  sensibly  advanced  towards 
some  higher  form  ?  Can  he  show  that  3,000  generations 
have,  in  any  instance,  done  aught  towards  proving  the 
truth  of  his  hypothesis  ?  It  appears  that  he  cannofc  point 
to  a  single  such  case  as  yielding  him  support.  3,000  gene- 
rations have  done  literally  nothing  for  his  hypothesis.  If 
so,  neither  would  30,OuO,  nor  300,000  ;  for,  as  Homo  truly 
remarked,  if  you  multiply  nothing  by  a  million,  it  will  be 
nothing  still. 

Taking  this  view  of  the  historical  period,  such  evidence 
as  it  affords  does  not  assist  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis.  But 
what  of  experiments  made  by  naturalists — Natural  Selection 
aided  by  human  reason  ?  Men  have  long  been  engaged  in 
the  breeding  of  cattle.  We  have  records  of  human  skill 
and  ingenuity  in  this  department  during  a  longer  period 
than  3,000  years.  We  know,  moreover,  that  dome-tic 
animals,  and  animals  dependant  on  man,  can  easily  be 
modified.  Important  modifications  have  been  produced 
even  within  the  present  century.  But  has  anything  been 
accomplished  towards  the  production  of  a  new  species  ? 
Professor  Iluxley,  somewhat  reluctantly  it  would  appear, 

K  2 


140  HOMO   V.   DARWIX. 

answers  "  No."  Even  by  crossing  different  species,  nothing 
has  been  effecteJ.  The  curse  of  sterility  rests  on  all 
creatures  produced  beyond  the  bounds  set  by  Nature.  They 
are  unable  to  propagate  their  kind.  Thus,  so  far  as  ob- 
servation and  experiment  go,  they  are  both  against  Mr. 
Darwin. 

The  appeal  to  geology  is  equally  vain.  Though,  if  Mr. 
Darwin's  hypothesis  be  true,  there  must  have  been  a  series 
of  forms  graduating  from  some  lower  form,  not  only  up  to 
man,  but  up  to  every  kind  of  creature  at  present  living  on 
the  earth,  no  one  of  these  series  of  forms  can  be  found  ; 
nor  even  such  a  portion  of  one  of  them  as  to  afford  ground 
for  belief  that  the  series  was  a  reality. 

If  a  few  successive  links  in  some  one  of  these  innumer- 
able chains  of  descent  could  be  produced,  they  would 
speak,  so  far,  convincingly  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Darwin's 
hypothesis.  But,  of  the  myriads  of  successive  links,  in 
myriads  of  chains  of  animal  descent  which  must  have 
existed  if  this  hypothesis  be  true,  not  even  two  links  can 
be  produced  which  so  fit  as  to  show  that  they  once  were 
joined.  I  am  aware  that  Professor  Huxley,  in  a  lecture 
delivered  by  him  on  "The  Pedigree  of  the  Horse,"  stated 
that  the  rocks  show  transitional  forms,  but  he  would  entirely 
fail  in  attempting  to  prove  that  the  horse  is  descended  from 
any  form  different  from  itself. 

There  are  thus  absolutely  no  facts  either  in  the  records 
of  geology,  or  in  the  history  of  the  past,  or  in  the  expe- 
rience of  the  present,  that  can  be  referred  to  as  proving 
evolution,  or  the  development  of  one  species  from  another 
by  selection  of  any  kind  whatever.  Mr.  Darwin  himself  is 
so  conscious  of  this  that  the  whole  of  the  evidence  he 
adduces  in  proof  of  his  hypothesis  is  derived  from  those 
points  of  similarity  that  exist  between  the  bodily  structure 


SIXTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  141 

of  man  and  that  of  the  lower  animals.  It  appears  to  ma 
that  his  argument,  founded  on  the  existence  of  those 
resemblances,  has  been  fairly  and  satisfactorily  answered. 
As  man  possesses  an  animal  nature,  and  has  to  live  on  this 
earth,  it  is  not  strange  that  his  bodily  frame  should  be 
constructed  after  the  model  of  other  animals. 

As  to  Mr.  Darwin's  argument  from  the  resemblances 
between  the  embryos  of  man  and  those  of  the  lower  animals, 
it  is  sufficient  to  reply  to  it  that,  as  there  are  resemblances 
in  their  bodily  structures  when  mature,  there  must  neces- 
sarily be  resemblances  in  them  when  in  process  of  develop- 
ment. We  have  the  authority  of  Professor  Owen  for 
affirming  that  "  the  embryo  "  of  man  "  does  not  pass  through 
the  lower  forms  of  animals,"  and  in  the  drawing  which 
Mr.  Darwin  produces  to  show  the  similarity  between  the 
embryos  of  man  and  dog,  the  differences  are  so  apparent  as 
to  make  one  wonder  how  he  could  have  imagined  that  such 
an  exhibition  would  help  his  argument. 

He  points  us,  moreover,  to  the  existence  of  what  he 
calls  "rudimentary  structures"  in  the  human  body — 
structures  which  are  found  fully  developed  only  in  some  of 
the  lower  animals ;  and  he  attributes  the  occasional 
existence  of  such  structures  in  man  to  a  tendency  in  him 
to  "revert"  to  the  type  of  some  ancient  progenitor.  The 
instances  which  he  adduces,  however,  are  so  trivial  and 
uncertain  that  I  am  amazed  they  could  aid  in  justifying, 
even  to  his  own  mind,  the  astounding  inference  that  the 
ape  is  father  to  the  man.  They  are  sufficiently  accounted 
for,  to  my  mind,  by  a  reference  to  the  unity  of  conception 
and  plan  traceable  among  the  whole  of  the  mammalia,  and 
to  the  fact  that  the  variations  of  structure  that  occur  in  the 
human  body  are  almost  innumerable.  Mr.  Dai-win  has 
told  us  of  "  558  muscular  variations  in  thirty-six  subjects," 


142  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

and  of  "  a  single  body  presenting  the  extraordinary  number 
of  twenty-five  distinct  abnormalities."  If  all  these  varia- 
tions and  abnormalities  were  in  the  direction  of  the 
monkey,  and  the  body  of  man  was  thus  manifesting  a  con- 
stant tendency  toward  the  monkey  type,  there  would  be 
some  show  of  reason  for  seeking  its  origin  in  that  quarter  ; 
but  when  it  is  only  occasionally — I  may  say,  rarely — that 
the  variations  in  question  glance  towards  the  simian  tribe, 
and  when  it  is  but  a  very  few  out  of  the  large  number  of 
the*e  variations  that  do  so,  to  argue  from  so  trivial  a 
circumstance  that  man  is  descended  from  the  ape,  is  an 
abuse  both  of  lo^ic  and  common  sense. 

Besides,  if  a  few  of  those  variations  look  towards  the  ape, 
in  what  direction  do  the  many  look  ?  It  is  not  pretended 
that  they  also  point  us  downward.  Are  they  pre-intima- 
tions,  then,  of  some  higher  form  yet  to  be  developed  from 
man  ?  In  writing  regarding  those  cases  which  he  calls 
"  reversions,"  Mr.  Darwin  should  have  kept  in  mind  his 
own  word-*,  "With  respect  to  the  causes  of  variability,  we 
are,  in  all  cases,  very  ignorant."  But  he  invariably  forgets 
those  words  when,  now  and  then,  he  meets  with  some 
variation  which  he  imagines  points  in  the  direction  of  the 
brute.  Then,  he  knows  the  cause  perfectly  !  It  lies  in  the 
fact  that  we  are  descended  from  apes !  Mr.  Darwin  should 
be  more  consistent.  I  think,  therefore,  that,  until  we  know 
more  about  those  "causes  of  variability,"  of  which,  as  he 
tells  us,  "we  are  in  all  cases  very  ignorant,"  or  until  we 
have  some  more  reliable  evidence  of  the  truth  of  his 
hypothesis,  we  must,  in  all  fairness,  set  down  those  in- 
stances which  he  quotes  as  proving  our  descent  from  the 
luwt-r  animals,  as  instances,  not  of  re  version,,  but  of  simple 
variation. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  for  me  to  refer  at  any  length  to 


SIXTH   DAT* 8  SITTIXQ.  143 

the  changes,  or  series  of  changes,  through  which  Mr.  Darwin 
supposes  the  "  ape-like  progenitors  of  man  "  to  have  entered 
on  this  fatherly  relation.  The  account  he  gives  of  the 
matter  certainly  does  not  lack  romance,  for,  while  "  some 
ancient  member  in  the  great  series  of  the  Primates'* 
becomes  strangely  plastic,  Nature  also  becomes  plastic,  and 
in  such  a  way  as  to  assist  in  the  transformation.  There  is 
a  change  in  this  creature's  "  manner  of  procuring  sub- 
sistence, or  a  change  in  the  conditions  of  its  native  country." 
Perhaps  the  climate  changes  ;  it  blows  cold  instead  of  hot  ; 
or  it  grows  fewer  trees  ;  or  such  fruits  as  are  produced  are 
not  tempting  enough  to  the  creature's  taste.  However  this 
may  be,  it  becomes  convenient  for  the  creature  to  *'live 
somewhat  less  on  trees  and  more  on  the  ground,"  and 
hence  to  "become  either  more  strictly  quadrupedal  or 
bipedal."  One  might  suppose  that  the  former  direction, 
ns  being  the  easier  of  the  two,  would  be  chosen,  in 
which  case  it  would  simply  revert  to  a  former  type, 
its  ancestors  having  been  quadrupeds  ;  but  somehow  it 
takes  the  bipedal  direction,  and  having  ceased  to  climb 
trees,  begins  to  climb  up  towards  man.  Everything 
conspires  to  help  its  progress.  As  the  conditions  of  its 
nat  ve  country  have  changer1,  it*  bodily  structure  changes 
to  correspond  with  them.  Before  this  creature,  or  rather, 
I  should  say,  its  progeny,  can  attain  to  intelligent  and 
civilized  manhood,  they  must  pass  through  the  savage  state. 
They  must  therefore  b2come  able  to  "manufacture  weapons," 
to  "  hurl  stones  and  spears  with  a  true  aim,"  "  to  defend 
themselves  with  stones  or  clubs,  to  attack  their  prey,  or 
otherwise  obtain  food."  It  will  therefore  be  "advantageous" 
to  them  "to  become  more  and  more  erect  or  bipedal." 
"Both  arms  and  the  whole  upper  part  of  the  body  should  be 
tree,"  Tney  "  must,  for  this  end,  stand  firmly  on  their 


144  HOMO  V.  DARWIN". 

feet."  These  creatures,  therefore,  "assume  the  erect 
attitude ! "  Their  feet  are  "  rendered  flat,  and  the  great 
toe  peculiarly  modified,  though  this  has  entailed  the  loss 
of  the  power  of  prehension."  The  hands,  now  used  less  for 
such  rough  work  as  climbing  trees,  acquire  a  human, 
delicateness  of  touch.  "  The  pelvis  "  is  "  made  broader, 
the  spine  peculiarly  curved,  and  the  head  fixed  in  an  altered 
position.  The  brain  increases  in  size,  and  rational  intellect 
is  developed.  They  become  "divested  of  hair  for  orna- 
mental purposes,"  and  at  length  the  tail — now  a  rather 
inconvenient  appendage  of  the  brute — is  somehow  got  rid 
of,  leaving  only  a  "few  basal  and  tapering  segments," 
which  "become  completely  embedded  within  the  body." 
Thus,  from  the  ape,  by  a  series  of  "  insensible  "  gradations, 
there  rises,  at  length,  the  man !  Such,  at  least,  expressed  in 
very  nearly  his  own  words,  is  Mr.  Darwin's  avowed  belief. 
It  would  be  humiliating,  though  curious,  were  Mr. 
J)ar\vin's  hypothesis  true,  to  reflect  on  the  strange  and 
merely  animal  contingencies  on  which  the  existence  of  the 
human  race  has  depended.  If  the  bo  lily  structure  of  some 
ancient  member  of  the  Primates  had  not  been  wonderfully 
plastic  ; — if  he  had  not  wooed  and  won  for  himself  a  mate  of 
like  plastic  frame  ;  if  their  posterity  had  not  inherited 
their  plastic  qualities  ;  if  there  had  not  been  a  change  in 
their  manner  of  procuring  subsistence,  or  in  the  conditions 
of  their  native  country  ;  if  they  had  not  thus  become  some- 
what less  arboreal  in  their  habits;  if  they  had  not  then 
begun  to  change  in  a  bipedal,  and  not  in  a  quadrupedal 
direction ;  if  any  one  of  these  contingencies  had  not 
occurred,  the  human  raco  had  never  existed  ;  there  would 
still  have  been  the  hairy  quadruped,  with  tail  and  pointed 
ears,  living  on  the  trees  of  African  forests,  but  man,  "the 
wonder  and  glory  of  the  universe,*'  had  not  come  forth  to 


SIXTH   DAY'S  SITTING*.  145 

subdue  the  world  and  fill  it  with  monuments  of  his  art 
and  skill.  There  would  have  been  no  naturalist  devoting 
a  life-time  to  the  study  of  the  instincts,  and  habits,  and 
anatomy  of  the  lower  animals  ;  fancying  he  has  discovered 
that  he  himself,  instead  of  having  a  celestial  origin,  is  one 
in  nature  with  those  lower  animals,  and  sprung  from  the 
same  primal  stock  :  hence,  searching  among  extinct  brute 
species  for  his  pedigree  ;  persuading  himself,  and  trying  to 
persuade  others,  that  he  has  found  it  ;  and  then  writing 
down  the  links  of  which  he  imagines  the  chain  of  his  descent 
to  be  composed,  though  he  is  unable  to  find  a  fossil 
skeleton,  or  even  a  fossil  bone,  to  prove  that  any  one  of 
those  links  is  a  reality  ! 

Those  who  accept  Mr.  Darwin's  account  of  the  descent  of 
man  must  accept  along  with  it  not  a  little  that  is,  if 
possible,  even  more  incredible.  For  example,  while  a 
certain  monkey  race  has,  by  a  series  of  insensible  gradations, 
occurring  during  a  period  of  enormous  length,  developed 
into  man,  other  monkey  races,  during  a  yet  longer  period, 
have  remained  monkeys,  making  no  progress  whatever  ! 
Mr.  Darwin,  I  presume,  would  maintain  that  at  least  half 
a  million  of  years  have  passed  since  man  emerged  into 
humanity  from  the  last  of  his  ape-like  progenitors.  How 
far  remote,  then,  must  be  the  time  when  the  ape  from 
which  man  has  descended,  branched  away  from  the  stem  of 
the  Old  World  monkeys  !  But  during  this  period — so  long 
that,  to  us,  it  is  practically  an  eternity — Old  World  monkeys 
have  remained  Old  World  monkeys,  with  the  solitary 
exception  of  that  wonderful  member  of  the  ancient  series  of 
the  JPrimates,  with  his  plastic  frame,  of  which  Mr.  Darwin 
catches  "  an  obscure  glance"  through  the  dim  vista  of  ages. 

In   accepting  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  then,  we  must 
believe  that,  since  this  creature,  millions  upon  millions  of 


H6  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

ages  ago,  began  its  journey  from  monkey  hood  to  humanity, 
there  have  been  none  of  his  relatives  either  among  the  Old 
World  monkeys  or  the  New  World  monkeys  that  have  had 
the  capacity  or  the  ambition  to  imitate  his  example  ;  or  that, 
if  any  there  were,  they  perished  in  the  attempt !  Perhaps, 
as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Darwin's  ape,  the  progeny  destroyed 
the  parents,  in  other  cases  the  parents  may  have  destroyed 
the  progeny.  At  all  events,  while  the  stem  of  Old  World 
monkeys  and  the  stem  of  New  World  monkeys  survives 
and  flourishes  to  the  present  day,  no  branch  proceeding 
from  either  of  them  has  been  so  favoured,  except  the  branch 
that  has  blossomed  into  man.  Such  being  the  case,  then, 
Old  World  monkeys  and  New  World  monkeys  having,  on 
Mr.  Darwin's  own  showing,  continued  to  be  Old  World  and 
New  World  monkeys  for  millions  upon  millions  of  ages, 
in  spite  of  the  constant  watchfulness  and  incessant  and 
powerful  working  of  Natural  Selection — Mr.  Darwin's  god 
that  never  slumbers  nor  sleeps — can  it  be  believed  that  this 
ancient  member  of  the  Primates  ever  existed  to  secede  from 
their  society  and  cross  the  gulf  which  now  separates  all  of 
them  from  man  ?  I  should  hope,  for  the  credit  of  our 
common  rationality,  that  there  are  but  few  of  "  the  younger 
and  rising  naturalists  "  who  possess  credulity  enough  to 
accept  such  a  belief.* 

If  Mr.  Darwin  thus  fails  on  the  field  of  Natural  History, 

•  The  writer  has  just  had  his  attention  drawn  to  the  following 
notice  in  The  Academy,  of  September  1st,  1871.  The  fact  men- 
tioned great Ij  strength*  ns  the  position  taken  above.  "  Fossil  Ba  ». — 
At  the  meeting  of  the  Br.tish  Association,  Professor  Ya  i  Bcned.  n.  of 
Lou  ain.nad  a  paper  on  '  The  i:.-iN  c  f  the  Mammoth  Period  com- 
pared with  existing  species.'  The  learned  Professor,  afier  devoting 
znuch  study  to  the  remains  of  species  collected  in  the  caves  of  Belgium, 
finds  that  they  do  not  differ  in  any  way  from  those  now  existing  in 
the  Kame  country." 


SIXTH  DAY'S  SITTING.  147 

igrh  FO  familiar  with  it,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  he 
6h<mld  fail  yet  more  sk-nally  in  attempting  to  show  that 
"  there  is  no  fundamental  difference  between  man  and  the 
higher  mammals  in  their  mental  faculties."  By  an  unfortu- 
nate omission  he  doe*  not  tell  ns  what,  iu  his  view,  would 
on>titute-such  a  difference.  Now,  not  to  rerer  again  to 
the  question  as  to  the  difference  between  reason  and  instinct, 
it  may  be  fairly  maintained  that,  whatever  mental  faculties 
the  higher  mammals  may  possess — even  granting  that  they 
possess  all  Mr.  Darwin  would  contend  for — if  it  be  the  case 
that  man  possesses,  besides  those  faculties,  other  higher 
mental  faculties  of  which  they  exhibit  not  the  slightest 
trace,  here  we  have  a  difference  that  is  both  fundamental 
and  vital.  But,  on  Mr.  Darwin's  own  admission,  this  is 
the  case.  "While  he  fails  to  show  that  any  one  of  the  lower 
animals  exercises  self-consciousness,  or  possesses  the  power 
of  abstraction,  or  is  able  to  form  general  ideas,  or  is  capable 
of  progressive  improvement,  or  has  "man's  large  power  ofcon- 
ntclnig  d+finite  sounts  with  definite  ideas,"  he  does  not  omit 
to  tell  us  that  "  no  one  supposes  that  any  one  of  the  lower 
animals  reflects  on  whence  he  comes  and  whither  he  goes, 
what  is  life,  and  what  is  death,  and  so  forth."  But  why  do 
not  the  lower  animals  exercise  such  reflection  ?  Clearly 
because  no  one  of  them  posses  es  those  mental  powers  by 
which  man  is  able  so  to  reflect.  This  power  of  refle  tion, 
and  of  taking  action  as  the  result  of  such  reflection,  is  one 
of  the  grand  distinguishing  characteristics  of  man.  Mr. 
Darwin  thus  contradicts  himself.  He  fir.-t  tells  us  that 
"theie  is  no  fundamental  difference  between  man  and  the 
higher  mammals  in  their  mental  faculties,"  and  then  he 
points  ns  to  where  such  a  difference  lies  !  "  £uch  a  dif- 
ference has  no  existence,"  he  says;  "none  whatever  ;"  then, 
after  a  vain  attempt  to  throw  a  veil  of  mist  over  the  point, 


148  HOMO  V.  DAEWIN. 

it  shines  out  so  clearly,  even  to  himself,  that  he  is  forced 
to  exclaim,  "  Lo,  here  it  is,  after  all  1" 

This  "  fundamental  difference "  appears  again  in  Mr. 
Darwin's  utter  failure  to  show  that  any  one  of  the  lower 
animals  is  capable  of  conceiving  the  thought  of  God,  of 
eternity,  or  of  immortality ;  of  exercising  the  "  highly 
complex  feeling  of  religious  devotion,"  or  possessing  "the 
grand  idea  of  God  hating  sin  and  loving  righteousness." 
Why  does  man  possess  this  capacity  while  all  the  lower 
animals  are  not  only  entirely  destitute  of  it,  but  have 
manifestly  no  tendency  in  them  to  develop  it  ?  There  can 
be  but  one  answer  to  this  question.  While  man  possesses 
an  animal  nature,  he  possesses  also  a  higher  nature,  endowed 
with  higher  faculties,  in  which  none  of  the  lower  animals 
share.  Even  admitting,  then,  that  some  of  the  inferior 
animals  possess  such  faculties  as  Mr.  Darwin  contends  for — 
imitation,  attention,  memory,  curiosity,  wonder,  &c. — they 
are  but  brute  faculties  after  all.  They  are  the  faculties  of 
creatures  whose  nature  is  essentially  and  fundamentally 
inferior  to  that  of  man — faculties,  therefore,  which  can  be 
exercised  only  on  the  low  and  limited  level  on  which  the 
brute  lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being.  There  is  thus  all 
the  difference  in  mental  faculty  between  man  and  the 
highest  of  the  lower  animals,  that  there  is  between  a  nature 
that  is  rational  and  a  nature  that  is  irrational ;  between  a 
creature  that  is  under  a  law  of  force  and  impulse,  and  one 
that  is  under  a  law  of  motive  and  moral  obligation  and 
duty  ;  a  creature  limited  in  its  capacity  for  improvement, 
and  one  capable  of  endless  progression  ;  a  creature  whose 
aims  and  impulses  all  relate  to  the  body  and  that  cannot 
possibly  conceive  the  thoughts  of  God,  accountability, 
retribution,  immortality,  eternity — and  a  creature  that  can 
derive  its  motives  and  aims  from  unseen  Fpiritual  realities, 


SIXTH   DAY'S   SITTING.  140 

and  that  can.  hold  high  and  blessed  fellowship  with 
God. 

If  Mr.  D-irwin  made  a  mistake  in  carrying  his  hypothesis 
into  the  domain  of  mind,  he  has  made  a  yet  greater 
mistake  in  carrying  it  into  that  of  conscience  and  the  moral 
sense,  for,  as  he  himself  informs  us,  this  sense  is  possible 
only  where  there  is  human  reason.  "  Any  animal  what- 
ever," he  says,  "endowed  with  well-marked  social  instincts 
would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral  sense  or  conscience  as 
soon  as  its  intellectual  powers  had  become  as  well  developed, 
or  nearly  as  well  developed,  as  in  man."  But  if  an  animal 
must  thus  become  an  intellectual  creature  before  it  can 
become  a  moral  creature,  Mr.  Darwin  must  show  that  such 
intellectual  development  is  possible  to  it,  before  his  argu- 
ment can  have  the  least  weight.  As  we  have  just  seen, 
however,  he  not  only  fails  to  show  that  brute  intellect  is 
essentially  the  same  as  human  intellect,  but  indicates 
various  points  of  fundamental  difference  between  them. 

I  should  be  justified,  therefore,  in  altogether  declining  to 
notice  what  he  says  in  this  part  of  his  subject,  and  would 
certainly  do  so,  were  it  not  for  the  very  serious  error 
involved  in  the  views  he  puts  forth,  and  the  very  serious 
consequences  that  must  result  should  those  views  find  their 
way  into  the  popular  mind.  According  to  Mr.  Darwin,  con- 
science is  based  on  the  social  animal  instincts,  and  is  merely 
the  result  of  their  fuller  development  in  an  animal  in  which 
the  mental  faculties  are  being  developed  as  well.  But  he 
tells  us  further  that  he  does  "  not  wish  to  maintain  that 
every  strictly  social  animal  .  .  .  would  acquire  exactly  the 
same  moral  sense  as  ours  ;"  that,  "  to  take  an  extreme  case, 
if  men  were  reared  under  precisely  the  same  conditions  as 
hive-bees,  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  our  unmarried 
females  would  think  it  a  sacred  duty  to  kill  their  brothers, 


150  HOMO   V.    DARWIN. 

and  mothers  would  strive  to  kill  their  fertile  daughters  ; 
and  no  one  would  think  of  interfering  !"  What  is  this  but 
to  tell  us  that  there  is  no  stable  and  unchanging  rule  of 
duty  ;  that  our  notions  of  right  and  wrong  are  merely  the 
result  of  the  conditions  und,  r  which  we  have  lived,  and 
would,  under  other  conditions,  be  entirely  different  from 
what  they  are  ;  nay,  that  we  might  have  been  so  reared  that 
family  murder  would  be  a  "  sacred  duty,"  and  that  a  mother 
would  he  fulfilling  her  highest  moral  and  social  obligations 
in  taking  the  life  of  her  hapless  babe  ! 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  such  sentiments  may  be  abused,  and 
how,  under  the  stimulus  of  such  Malthusian  notions  as 
Mr.  Darwin  has  imbibed,  and  on  which,  indeed,  his  book 
is  largely  based,  a  more  convenient  mode  of  getting  rid  of 
our  surplus  population,  or  preventing  its  increase,  might  be 
advocated  and  introduced.  Mr.  Darwin  seems  darkly  to 
hint  at  something  of  the  kind  when  he  tells  us  how,  among 
"  savages,  the  weak  in  body  and  mind  are  soon  eliminated," 
that  is — to  express  it  in  plain  English — killed  off,  if  not  by 
murder,  by  cruelty  and  neglect ;  while  those  who  "survive 
commonly  exhibit  a  vigorous  state  of  health  ;"  that  we 
civilized  men  "check  the  process  of  elimination"  by  our 
asylums,  hospitals,  poor  laws,  medical  skill^  vaccination, 
&c. ;  that  "  thus  the  weak  members  of  civilized  'society 
propagate  their  kind  ;"  that,  "except  in  the  case  of  man 
himself,  hardly  any  one  is  so  ignorant  as  to  allow  his  worst 
animals  to  breed  ;"  and  that  all  this  is  "highly  injurious 
to  the  race  of  man  !" 

Such  were  formerly  the  private  sentiments  of  Mr.  Darwin. 
They  are  now  his  advanced  opinions — the  scientific  teaching 
which  he  offers  to  the  British  public, — the  new  and  better 
li^ht  \\hich  he  has  discovered  by  his  life-long  studies  of 
animal  existence,  and  which  he  holds  up  to  guide  us  into  a 


SIXTII  DAY'S  SITTING.  i:>l 

more  excellent  way.  He  tells  us  indeed  that  "  we  could 
not  check  our  sympathy  "  towards  the  poor,  and  weak,  and 
Buffering,  "  without  deterioration  in  the  noblest  part  of  our 
nature  ;"  but  what  avails  such  a  hint  when  he  puts  into  the 
mouths  of  such  as  might  be  disinclined  to  take  it,  such  a 
reply  as  the  following  to  the  promptings  of  any  kindly 
impulses  of  their  nature  ? — the  exercis?  of  them  would 
be  "  highly  injurious  to  the  race  of  man." 

If  such  sentiments  were  generally  adopted  —  which, 
happily,  we  have  little  reason  to  fear— in  the  course  of  a 
fe  v  generations  they  would  assuredly  open  the  flood-gates 
of  irreligion  and  immorality  in  our  land,  and  cause  such  an 
outburst  of  selfi  hness  and  impiety  as  would  overturn  our 
so.ial  institutions  from  fieir  lowest  foundations,  and  intro- 
duce a  moral  disorder  and  anarchy  w  Jch  might  be  lon^  in 
passing  away.  Such  a  change  has  been  brought  about  in 
Franc?  by  the  working  of  a  false  and  irrational  religion  on 
the  one  hand,  aid  by  the  rash  speculations  of  (so-called) 
philosophers  and  men  of  science  on  the  other  ;  an  1  what 
has  occurred  in  France  is  possible  in  England.  We  cannot 
reasonably  expect  a  people  to  be  bett  r  than  the  God  they 
believe  in.  To  be  like  the  object  of  their  faith  and  worship 
is  about  as  high  an  ambition  as  can  influence  them.  Lst 
our  countrymen,  t'.en,  learn  to  believe  in  the  deity  which 
Mr.  Darwin  introduces  to  them — let  them  discard  the  God 
and  Redeemer  of  Christianity  for  the  powers  which  he  tells 
them  have  founded  and  built  up  the  rational  world — Natural 
Selection  and  Sexual  Selection — and  \vhat  could  we  expect 
as  the  result  but  the  upturning  of  the  foundations  of  both 
religion  and  morality  ;  the  destruction  of  all  that  is  pure, 
and  gentle,  and  loving,  and  sympathetic  in  the  re  ations  of 
life  as  they  at  present  subsist  among  us  ;  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  force,  and  passion,  and  cunning,  for  benevolencj  and 


152  HOMO  V.  DARWIN. 

self-restraint.  There  would  then  be  a  case  of  what  Mr. 
Darwin  might  regard  as  "reversion"  indeed  ;  civilized  men 
would  become  civilized  savages,  and  the  world  would  go 
back  into  the  darkness  of  the  deepest  moral  night. 

I  can  have  no  wish  to  charge  Mr.  Darwin  with  atheism, 
but,  certainly,  his  work  now  before  us,  while  it  speaks  of 
"  a  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  universe,"  and  of  the  question 
as  to  his  existence  having  been  "answered  in  the  affirmative 
by  the  highest  intellects  that  have  ever  lived,"  contains  no 
clear  and  definite  acknowledgment  of  belief  in  Him  as 
cherished  by  Mr.  Darwin  himself.  Practically,  Darwinism 
— as  it  has  been  called — in  this  latest  exposition  of  it,  is 
atheism,  and  atheism  of  the  most  dreary  and  hopeless  kind. 
If  it  does  not  deny  God,  it  ignores  God.  Its  tendency  is  to 
remove  the  Divine  Being  entirely  from  the  view  of  man, 
and  to  lead  to  disbelief  in  his  having  any  connection  what- 
ever with,  or  interest  in,  human  affairs.  The  world  is  given 
up  by  Him  to  the  hard,  conscienceless,  unsympathetic  power 
and  rule  of  Natural  Selection.  There  is  no  beneficent  pro- 
vidence.* For  anything  that  God  now  does  in  the  province 
of  Nature  and  of  man,  there  might  as  well  be  written  over 
it,  "No  God  is  here."  If  man  come  to  have  "  the  idea  of 
a  universal  and  beneficent  Creator  of  the  universe,"  it  is 
not  "  until  he  has  been  elevated  by  long-continued  culture." 
If  "  the  feeling  of  religious  devotion"  inspire  man,  it  is 
but  the  result  of  the  development  in  him  of  facult:es 
which  the  lower  animals  possess  as  well  as  himself; — for, 
"  in  the  deep  love  of  a  dog  for  his  master "  "  we  see 

In  reply  to  Professor  As  i  Gray,  Mr.  Darwin  maintains  that,  although 
we  might  wish  to  find  proof  that  a  benefic.-nt  providence  ha  1  jjuiil,-,! 
the  evolution  of  animal  forms,  we  have  no  evidence  th  it  a  b  iicfin-iit 
providence  has  done  so  even  in  the  case  of  man  himself.  Seethe 
cloning  sentriii-f.«  of  Mr.  I);'r\viu'd  work  on  "The  Variation  of  Animals 
t.nd  Plants  under  Doni'^t  cati  11." 


SIXTH   DAY'S  SITTING.  153 

some  di  tant  approach  to  this  state  of  mind/'  On  Mr. 
Darwin's  hypothesis,  Divine  benevolence,  if  it  exist  at  all, 
has  never  been  exercised  towards  man  ;  Divine  revelation  is 
a  fable  ;  man  is  an  inscrutable  mystery  ;  he  is  an  enigma, 
insoluble  even  by  himself;  his  hope  of  immortality  is  a 
dream ! 

I  must  add  to  what  I  have  said  that,  in  my  judgment, 
Homo  himself  is  not  free  from  error.  He  seems  anxious  to 
uphold  "  the  dogma  of  separate  creations,"  as  Mr.  Darwin 
calls  it.  But  this  is  not — though  Homo  seems  to  think 
so — a  dogma  contained  in  the  Bible.  I  read  there,  after 
the  formation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  of  but  one 
separate  act  of  creation,  and  that  has  reference  to  man. 
Scripture  nowhere  teaches  that  the  Divine  Being  created 
each  kind  of  creature  separately.  In  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  He  is  represented  as  issuing  the  command,  "  Let 
the  waters  bring  forth  abundantly  the  moving  creature  that 
hath  life,  and  fowl  that  may  fly  above  the  earth  in  the 
open  firmament  of  heaven."  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth 
the  living  creature  after  his  kind,  cattle,  and  creeping 
thing,  and  beast  of  the  earth  after  his  kind  :  and  it  was 
so."  Farther  light  is  given  in  the  words,  "  The  Spirit  of 
God  moved  "  brooded  "  upon  the  face  of  the  waters,"  as  the 
source  and  fountain  of  life.  While  the  inferior  creatures 
are  thus  summoned  into  existence  by  God,  man  is  repre- 
sented as  having  been  created  separately — by  himself.  We 
read  concerning  him,  "And  the  Lord  God  formed  man 
of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils 
the  breath  of  life  ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul."  But 
no  one  would  understand  these  words  as  meaning  that  the 
Divine  B.-ing  appeared  visibly  upon  this  earth,  and  that, 
taking  a  handful  of  its  dust,  he  moulded  it  into  human 
form,  and  then  breathed  into  it  the  spirit  of  life.  All  that 

L 


154  HOMO  V.   DARWIN. 

we  can  rightly  deduce  from  such  language  is  this :  man 
Irs  derived  existence  from  God  ;  his  body  was  formed  by 
Divine  power  from  the  mateiial  of  the  earth  which  he 
inhabits ;  the  life  inspiring  him  has  come  from  his 
Creator.  "We  are  told  nothing  -of  the  forces  by  which 
Divine  power  wrought  in  building  up  the  material  structure 
of  man.  Any  such  reference  would  have  been  unsuitable 
for  the  time  in  which  those  writings  were  prepared,  and  for 
those  into  whose  hands  they  were  first  to  come.  Kingsley 
has  well  remarked  that,  if  Scripture  had  spoken  of  the 
material  world,  and  of  its  creation,  in  language  that  would 
have  been  unintelligible  to  early  man — and  it  would  have 
done  so,  had  it  spoken  in  the  langucge  of  modern  science — 
it  could  not  have  spoken  of  unseen  things  so  as  to  com- 
mand his  belief. 

The  Darwinian  notion  of  man's  having  had  a  series  of 
bestial  progenitors  is  certainly  irreconcilable  with  the  sacred 
narrative  of  Genesis,  as  it  is  also  with  tho^e  fundamental 
ideas  of  Revelation — the  Fall,  and  the  Redemption  of  Man. 
Whether  it  is  consistent  with  any  form  of  religion,  I  need 
not  here  consider  ;  but  it  is  utterly  inconsistent  with 
Christianity.  I  am  aware  that  an  attempt  has  been  made 
to  modify  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  with  respect  to  man. 
It  has  been  suggested  that,  though  man's  body  may  have, 
for  the  most  part,  a  brutish  origin,  yet  that  Divine  power 
may  have  miraculously  interfered  to  strip  it  of  its  hairy 
covering,  to  increase  the  size  of  the  brain,  and  produce 
other  changes.  Such  an  idea — in  itself  ridiculous — if  it  be 
intended  to  reconcile  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  with  Christi- 
anity, is  useless  and  futile.  Revelation  clearly  supposes 
man's  pristine,  God-derived  purity,  and  the  possibility  of 
his  being  restored  to  that  purity  again.  It  teaches  that 
man  was  created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  that  that  image 


SIXTH    DAYS    SITTING.  I.--.', 

may  again  be  impressed  on  him.  Few  will  deny  the  possi- 
bility of  this  as  to  man.  It  is  utterly  inconceivable  in  the 
ca  e  of  the  brute.  I  very  deeply  regret  that  Mr.  Darwin 
should  think  otherwise. 

I  c.m  now  have  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  the 
Defendant  guilty  with  respect  to  the  charge  made  ag^in^t 
him  by  Homo,  and,  considering  the  injurious  consequences 
likely  to  result  from  Mr.  Da-rwin's  statements,  I  award 
to  the  Plaintiff 

Homo.  My  Lord,  will  you  allow  me  to  say  that,  as  your 
Lordship  has  so  clearly  shown  the  justness  of  my  cause, 
and  as  I  am  not  influenced  by  any  vindictive  feeling  toward 
Mr.  Darwin,  I  shall  be  amply  satisfied  if  he  will  publish  a 
retractation  of  the  libel,  and  also  of  the  errors  whkh  his 
book  contains. 

Lord  C.  It  is  not  for  me  to  object  to  such  an  arrange- 
ment. I  will  therefore  defer  the  award  which  I  was  about 
to  make,  in  order  that  Mr.  Darwin  may  have  time  to 
reconsider  the  matter,  and  to  frame — as  I  trust  he  will — 
an  ample  and  complete  retractation.  Should  he  still  con- 
tinue  his  studies  in  Natural  History,  he  will  do  well  hence- 
forth to  confine  himself  to  that  department  in  which  he  has 
hitherto  been  so  succ-essful.  By  all  means  let  him  go  on 
collecting  facts,  but  let  him  see  that  what  he  records  as  facts 
are  sufficiently  verified.  Seeing,  however,  that  his  attempts 
at  theorising  have  been  so  unsatisfactory,  and  might  lead 
to  such  dep'orable  results,  let  him  now  put  a  restraint  on 
his  imagination.  I  hope  he  will  henceforth  take  f.-r  his 
motto,  the  words  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  philosophers 
winch  Englmd  or  the  world  has  ever  produced, 

FIXGO  HYPOTHESES." 


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